
Book-_ -sl-(^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



A CBNTURT 



American Literature 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



SELECTIONS FROM A HUNDRED AUTHORS 



CHOSEN AND ARRANGED 



HUNTINGTON SMITH 




J' 301889 

'■H[^lGTC5^i. 
NEW""^ 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
13 AsTOR Place 



\ 



6^ 



COI I'RIGHT, 1889, 

By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



jz-z^jty 



Ttpoorapht bt J. 8. Gushing & Co., Boston. 



PREFACE. 



In view of that scholarly and elaborate enterprise, the 
Stedman-Hutehinson Library of American Literature, and 
of Mr. Morris's entertaining Half Hours with American 
Authors, to say nothing of an indefinite series of antholo- 
gies of one sort and another, it might seem at first glance 
as if the present collection were on the whole superfinons j 
I hope, however, that such will not be the verdict of the 
great mass of readers for whose use it has been prepared. 
Whether we have or have not, in the strictly critical sense, 
an American literature, it is certain that histories of that 
subject have been written and that they demand a fair 
amount of illustration in the form of extracts which could 
not, by reason of limitations of space, be introduced to any 
considerable extent with the current of biographical narra- 
tive and aesthetic comment. Such a collection of extracts 
must not be too voluminous, it must be representative 
in range, and it must give a definite conception of each 
writer's method and style. This want the present work 
undertakes to supply. It is offered, primarily, as a com- 
panion to all existing histories of American literature, and 
as such I trust it may find a welcome. 

But I have not, in making and arranging these selections, 
kept entirely to this primary object. I have sought to 
give, as far as possible in the space at my disposal, a bird's- 
eye view of the development of our native literature from 



IV PREFACE. 

Franklin, with whom it may safely be said to have taken 
its rise, to the brilliant group of contemporary authors, of 
whom Mr. Lowell is the unquestioned leader. Any one 
who reads the following pages in due order will obtain, I 
think, in a reasonably short space of time, a conception 
of the intellectual growth of this country not to be had 
so readily in any other way. 

I have, moreover, tried to make each selection as far as 
possible complete in itself and expressive of an American 
idea. This last aim has of course been chiefly maintained 
with regard to the extracts from political writers, and the 
result may perhaps compensate for an occasional lack of 
purely literary charm. 

The list of authors which has been chosen includes, I 
believe, every name of importance during the period cov- 
ered by the plan of the book, and, although it might have 
been enlarged to some extent, the consequent additions 
would have been of questionable advantage. In this cen- 
tennial year of the republic a little humility in the things 
of the mind may not be an unprofitable contrast with our 
pride in material progress. Let us recognize and duly 
reverence the merits of these noble forerunners in the field 
of letters, but let us acknowledge, once for all, that the 
great majority of the writers we have thus far produced, 
when tested by the world's standard of excellence, fall 
somewhat below the level of immortal renown. In such 
an attitude there can be no disgrace, and it will perhaps 
conduce to healthy growth in the future. Seven centuries 
passed over Rome before her genius ripened into eternal 
song ; Greece was a thousand years in developing a litera- 
ture ; nearly as long a period elapsed before the amalgama- 
tion of the Angle and the Saxon resulted in Chaucer and 



PREFACE. V 

his long line of illustrious successors. Shall we, although 
the heirs of all the ages with the spoils of civilization at 
our feet, develop a literature worthy the name in the space 
of six brief generations ? A literature is the record of a 
nation's life ; a nation must have lived long and much be- 
fore its deeds and its aspirations, its trials and its triumphs, 
are recorded for the benefit of its posterity. The first cen- 
tury of the republic has been one of unbounded vigor ; 
ideas have been brought forth not all of which have yet 
found a fit historian ; and, meanwhile, let us be grateful 
that we have produced even half a dozen names that we 
may reasonably hope will shine on the bead-roll of Fame 

forever. 

HUNTINGTON SMITH. 
Dorchester, Mass., 
May 29, 1889. 



NOTE. 

For permission to employ copyrighted material in the 
preparation of this volume, the hearty thanks of the editor 
are due to many publishers. He wishes especially to ac- 
knowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
in allowing him to make use of extracts from upwards of 
a dozen prominent authors, and to express further his obli- 
gations to Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., Messrs. Harper & 
Brothers, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, Messrs. Little, 
Brown & Co., Messrs. Roberts Brothers, Messrs. Lee & 
Shepard, and Messrs. J. Stilman Smith & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



1. Benjamin Franklin (1700-1790). page 

Happiness 1 

His Father 2 

Poor Ricliard's Wisdom 3 

Oil on Water 4 

2. John Woolman (1720-1772). 

His Last Voyage 6 

3. James Otis (1725-1783). 

Representative Government 9 

4. Patrick Henry (1736-1799). 

The Appeal to Arms 11 

5. Thomas Paine (1737-1809). 

The Advent of Peace 13 

6. George Washington (1732-1799). 

Party Spirit 15 

7. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1820). 

Political Tolerance 17 

Good Humor 18 

8. John Jay (1745-1829). 

The Outlook 20 

9. John Trumbull (1750-1831). 

The British Onslaught 22 

10. James Madison (1751-1830). 

The Republican Experiment 25 

11. Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804). 

The National Government 27 

12. Fisher Ames (1758-1808). 

National Obligations 29 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

13. Joel Barlow (1754-1812). page 

The Husking 31 

Invocation to Freedom 32 

14. John Marshall (1755-1835). 

Character of Washington 34 

15. Philip Freneau (1752-1832). 

The Wild Honeysuckle 36 

To the Memory of the Americans who fell at Eutaw 37 

16. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810). 

In the Cavern 38 

17. William Wirt (1772-1834). 

Patrick Henry's Eloquence 43 

18. James Kent (1763-1847). 

Science and Literature 45 

19. Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820). 

A Fairy Meeting 47 

20. Noah W^ebster (1758-1843). 

The Standard of Speech 49 

21. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). 

Individual Responsibility 53 

22. John Pierpont (1785-1866). 

My Child 57 

23. Henry Clay (1777-1852). 

A Plea for Compromise 59 

24. John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850). 

State Sovereignty 62 

25. Daniel W^ebster (1782-1852). 

Preservation of the Union 64 

26. Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847). 

Stanzas 68 

27. Washington Irving (1783-1859). 

Rip Van Winkle's Return 69 

28. Robert Taylor Conrad (1810-1858). 

On a Blind Boy 75 

29. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). 

An Encounter with the Iroquois 76 



CONTENTS. IX 

30. James Gates Percival (1795-1856). fage 

The Coral Grove 90 

31. WUliam Hickling Prescott (1790-1859). 

The Battle of Tlascala 92 

32. Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867). 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake 102 

33. Edward Everett (1794-1865). 

The Need of Patriotism 103 

34. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). 

Annabel Lee 106 

The Haunted Palace 107 

The City in the Sea 109 

To 110 

Torture Ill 

35. Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879). 

The Moss supplicateth for the Poet 117 

The Little Beach Bird 119 

36. George Ticknor (1791-1871). 

Cervantes 121 

37. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). 

To the Fringed Gentian 123 

To a Water-Fowl 124 

" Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids " 125 

The Planting of the Apple-Tree 126 

The Third of November, 1861 128 

38. John Gorham Palfrey (1796-1881). 

The Witchcraft Tragedy 130 

39. Edward Coate Pinkney (1802-1828). 

A Health 135 

40. Rufus Choate (1799-1859). 

Private Character of Webster 137 

41. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). 

Little Pearl in the Forest 141 

The Judge's Vigil 142 

The Skeptic's Doom 144 

42. Richard Hildreth (1807-1865). 

Aboriginal America 150 



X CONTENTS. 

43. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867). page 

Two Women 153 

Saturday Afternoon 154 

44. William Henry Seward (1801-1872). 

The Source of Public Virtue 156 

45. George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882). 

Limits of Human Power 159 

46. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). 

Individuality 162 

Opportunity 163 

Obedience 164 

The Moral Law in Nature 165 

Each and All 166 

The World-Soul 167 

Forerunners 171 

Concord Hymn 172 

Two Rivers ... 172 

47. Charles Pernio Hoffman (1806-1884). 

The Bob-o-Linkum 174 

To an Autumn Kose 175 

48. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). 

Footprints of Angels 177 

The Arrow and the Song 179 

The Bridge 179 

Sunset 181 

Launching the Ship 182 

Hiawatha's Wooing 184 

Nature 187 

49. Sylvester Judd (1813-1853). 

A Midwinter Walk 188 

50. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870). 

A Sudden Hurricane 191 

The Lost Pleiad 197 

51. Theodore Parker (1810-1860). 

Degrees of Greatness 199 

52. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). 

Solitude 203 

Morning Air 204 

Walden Pond 205 

Spring Prospects 206 

Inspiration 207 



CONTENTS. XI 

53. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). paqb 

The Gettysburg Address ." 208 

54. George Bancroft (1800- 

Tlie New England Puritans 209 

55. Alfred Billings Street (1811-1881). 

A Forest Walk 213 

50. AUce Gary (1820-1871). 

The Little House on the Hill 210 

Winter and Summer 217 

57. PhcEbe Gary (1824-1871). 

A Prayer 219 

March Crocuses 220 

True Love 221 

58. Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872). 

The Burial of the Dane 222 

Alone 224 

59. Henry James (1811-1882). 

Spiritual Emancipation 225 

CO. Gharles Etienne Arthur Gayarre (1805- 

The Legend of the Date Tree 227 

61. Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872). 

The Way-Side Spring 230 

The Stranger on the Sill 231 



62. Thomas Starr King (1824- 

Sight and Insight 233 

63. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- 

In School Days 235 

Ichabod ! 236 

Worship 238 

Snow-Bound 240 

64. Albert Pike (1809- 

To Ceres 242 

To Spring 244 

65. Robert Charles Winthrop (1809- 

The Pilgrim Fathers 246 

66. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809- 

Opinions 249 

Talk 250 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Truth and Falsehood 251 

The Last Leaf 252 

The Chambered Nautilus 253 

Under the Violets 254 

67. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812- 

Sani mends the Clock 257 

Eva and Topsy 259 

Romance 261 

68. Jones Very (1813-1880). 

The Lost 264 

To the Humming-Bird 264 

69. William Ross Wallace (1819-1881). 

El Amin — The Faithful 266 

70. John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877). 

Abdication of Charles the Fifth 268 

71. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882). 

Flogging 275 

72. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878). 

Love returned 277 

Bedouin Song 278 

The Song of the Camp 280 

From " The Pines " 281 

73. Wendell Phillips (1811-1884). 

The Duty of Scholarship 283 

74. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887). 

Strength of Self-Government 286 

75. John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887). 

My Castle in Spain 290 

76. Edwin Percy Whipple (1819-1886). 

Webster and Calhoun 292 

77. Byron Forceythe Willson (1837-1867). 

The Last Watch 294 

The Estray 295 

Autumn Song 295 

78. David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887). 

All's Well 297 

79. Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813- 

Written at Sorrento 300 



CONTENTS. Xm 

80. Robert Trail Spence Lowell (1816- page 

Love disposed of 302 

81. Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861). 

A Gallop of Three 304 

82. Henry Timrod (1829-1867). 

The Unknown Dead 307 

83. John Esten Cooke (1830-1886). 

An Adventure 309 

Tlie Rose of Glengary 313 

84. Helen Hunt Jackson (1831-1885). 

Spinning 315 

Two Truths 316 

Poppies on the Wheat 317 

Coronation 317 

85. George Arnold (1834-1865). 

The Matron Year 319 

86. Herman Melville (1819- 

A Scene in the Forecastle 321 

Sheridan at Cedar Creek 324 

Shiloh 326 

87. William Wetmore Story (1819- 

The Sad Country 327 

The Rose 327 

88. Thomas William Parsons (1819- 

Louisa's Grave 329 

89. Walt Whitman (1819- 

Greatness in Poetry 331 

O Captain ! My Captain ! 333 

The Singer in the Prison 334 

For You, O Democracy 336 

90. Julia Ward Howe (1819- 

Battle Hymn of the Republic 337 

91. James Russell Lowell (1819- 

Dryden 339 

Books and Reading 340 

Snow 341 

The First Snow-Fall 342 

Spring comes 344 

To the Dandelion 346 

From " Appledore " 347 

From " Tlie Present Crisis " 349 



XIV CONTENTS. 

92. Edward Everett Hale (1822- page 

A Lesson in Patriotism 352 

93. Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822- 

Nipped in the Bud 356 

9i. Donald Grant Mitchell (1822- 

Tlie Country Church 361 

95. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823- 

Spring in New England 365 

96. Francis Parkman (1823- 

The Heroes of the Long Saut 367 

97. George Henry Boker (1823- 

The Queen's Touch 374 

98. George William Curtis (1824- 

Pastoral Walks ' 379 

99. Charles Godfrey Leland (1824- 

Thelerae 382 

100. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825- 

The Country Life 385 

Hymn to the Sea 386 



A CENTURY 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

23enjamin jFranitlm* 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, January 17, 1706. d. April 17, 1790.] 
HAPPINESS. 

If we reflect upon any one passion and disposition of 
mind abstract from virtue, we shall soon see the discon- 
nexion betAveen that and true, solid happiness. 

It is of the very essence, for instance, of envy J^ 

•^ ' 7 J Happiness, 

to be uneasy and disquieted. Pride meets with 

provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion. 
Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety. 
Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the 
good fortune to satisfy us ; its appetite grows the keener 
by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present 
serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires. 

The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly 
objects, can never fix in us a proper composure and acquies- 
cence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things 
of this world, an entire submission to the will of Provi- 
dence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness 
hereafter, can give us a true satisfactory enjoyment of our- 
selves. Virtue is the best guard against the many unavoid- 
able evils incident to us ; nothing better alleviates the 
weight of the afflictions or gives a truer relish of the bless- 
ings of human life. 



2 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

What is without us has not the least connexion with 
happiness only so far as the preservation of our lives and 
health depends upon it. Health of body, though so far 
necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, 
is not sufficient to make us happy of itself. Happiness 
springs immediately from the mind; health is but to be 
considered as a condition or circumstance, without which 
this happiness cannot be tasted pure and unabated. 

Virtue is the best preservative of health, as it prescribes 
temperance and such a regulation of our passions as is most 
conducive to the well-being of the animal economy, so that 
it is at the same time the only true happiness of the mind, 
and the best means of preserving the health of the body. 

If our desires are to the things of this world, they are 
never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of 
the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher 
satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present. 

There is no happiness then but in a virtuous and self- 
approving conduct. Unless our actions will bear the test 
of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are 
not the actions and consequently not the happiness of a 
rational being. 



HIS FATHER. 

He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle 
stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, 

could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, 
^° ^°^' and had a clear, pleasing voice, so that when he 

played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, 
as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the 
day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had 
a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy 
in the use of other tradesmen's tools ; but his great excel- 
lence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in 
prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 3 

the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous 
family he had to educate and the straitness of his circum- 
stances keeping him close to his trade ; but I remember 
well his being frequently visited by leading people, who 
consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or 
of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of 
respect for his judgment and advice. He was also much 
consulted by private persons about their affairs when any 
difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator 
between contending parties. 

At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some 
sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always 
took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for dis- 
course, which might tend to improve the minds of his chil- 
dren. By this means he turned our attention to what was 
good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life ; and little 
or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals 
on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out 
of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to 
this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up 
in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite 
indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so 
unobservant of it that to this day, if I am asked, I can 
scarcely tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. 



POOR RICHARD'S WISDOM. 

So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times ? 

We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves. 

Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will 

die fasting. There are no gains without pains ; 

then help, hands, for I have no lands ; or if I ^ i^ ^J, 

■■^ ' ' 'to Wealth, 

have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath a 

trade, hath an estate, and he that hath a calling hath an 

office of profit and honor, as Poor Richard says ; but then 



4 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the trade must be worked at and the calling followed, or 
neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our 
taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve, for 
at the workingman's house hunger looks in but dares not 
enter. Kor will the bailiff nor the constable enter, for 
Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them. What 
though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich rela- 
tion left you a legacy, Diligence is the mother of good 
luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough 
deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell 
and to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for you know 
not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day 
is worth two to-morrows, as Poor Kichard says ; and fur- 
ther. Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do 
to-day. 



OIL ON WATER. 

During our passage to Madeira, the weather being warm, 
and the cabin windows constantly open for the benefit of 
Letter to ^^^® ^^^' ^^® candles at night flared and ran very 
John much, which was an inconvenience. At Madeira, 

Pringle. ^ye got oil to burn, and with a common glass tum- 
bler or beaker, slung in wire, and suspended to the ceiling 
of the cabin, and a little wire hoop for the wick, furnished 
with corks to float on the oil, I made an Italian lamp, that 
gave us very good light all over the table. The glass at 
bottom contained water to about one-third of its height ; an- 
other third was taken up with oil ; the rest was left empty 
that the sides of the glass might protect the flame from the 
wind. There is nothing remarkable in all this ; but what 
follows is particular. At supper, looking on the lamp, I 
remarked that though the surface of the oil was perfectly 
trancpul, and duly preserved its position and distance with 
regard to the brim of the glass, the water under the oil was 
in great commotion, rising and falling in irregular waves, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 5 

which continued during the whole evening. The lamp was 
kept burning as a watch-light all night, till the oil was spent 
and the water only remained. 

In the morning I observed that though the motion of the 
ship continued the same, the water was now quiet, and its 
surface as tranquil as that of the oil had been the evening 
before. At night again, when oil was put upon it, the water 
resumed its irregular motions, rising in high waves almost 
to the surface of the oil, but without disturbing the smooth 
level of that surface. And this was repeated every day 
during the voyage. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3o!}n SEoolman. 

[b. Northampton, New Jersey, August, 1720. d. October 7, 1772.] 
HIS LAST VOYAGE. 

The second day of the sixth month. — Last evening the sea- 
men found bottom at about seventy fathom. This morning 
fair wind, and pleasant : and as I sat on deck, my 
heart was overcome with the love of Christ, and 
melted into contrition before him : and in this state, the 
prospect of that work, to which I have felt my mind drawn 
when in my native land, being in some degree opened before 
me, I felt like a little child ; and my cries were put up to 
my heavenly Father for preservation, that in a humble 
dependence on him, my soul may be strengthened in his 
love, and kept inwardly waiting for his counsel. 

This afternoon we saw that part of England called the 
Lizard. 

Some dunghill fowls yet remained of those the passen- 
gers took for their sea-stores : I believe about fourteen per- 
ished in the storms at sea, by the waves breaking over the 
quarter-deck ; and a considerable number with sickness, at 
different times. I observed the cocks crew coming down 
the Delaware, and while we were near land ; but afterward, 
I think, I did not hear one of them crow till we came near 
the land in England, when they again crowed a few times. 
In observing their dull appearance at sea, and the pining 
sickness of some of them, I often remembered the Fountain 
of Goodness, who gave being to all creatures, and whose love 
extends to that of caring for the sparrows ; and believe, 
where the love of God is verily perfected, and -the true 
spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness 
toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced; 
and a care felt in us, that we do not lessen that sweetness of 



JOHN WOOLMAN. T 

life, in the animal creation, which the great Creator intends 
for them under our government. 

The fourth day of the month. — Wet weather, high winds, 
and so dark that we could see but a little way. I perceived 
our seamen were apprehensive of danger of missing the 
channel ; which, I understood, was narrow. In a while it 
grew lighter ; and they saw the land, and they knew where 
we were. Thus the Father of mercies was pleased to try 
us with the sight of dangers, and then graciously, from 
time to time, deliver from them : thus sparing our lives, 
that, in humility and reverence, we may walk before him, 
and put our trust in him. 

About noon a pilot came off from Dover ; where my be- 
loved friend Samuel Emlen went on shore, and thence to 
London, about seventy-two miles, by land ; but I felt easy 
in staying in the ship. 

The seventh day of the month, and first of the tveek. — 
Clear morning, lay at anchor for the tide, and had a parting 
meeting with the ship's company, in which my heart was 
enlarged in a fervent concern for them, that they may come 
to experience salvation through Christ. — Had a head wind 
up the Thames ; lay sometimes at anchor ; saw many ships 
passing, and some at anchor near; and had large opportu- 
tunity of feeling the spirit in which the poor bewildered 
sailors too generally live. That lamentable degeneracy, 
which so much prevails on the people employed on the 
seas, so affected my heart that I may not easily convey the 
feeling I have had to another. 

The present state of the sea-faring life, in general, appears 
so opposite to that of a pious education, so full of corrup- 
tion and extreme alienation from God, so full of examples, 
the most dangerous to young people, that in looking toward 
a young generation, I feel a care for them, that they may 
have an education different from the present education of 
lads at sea ; and that all of us who are acquainted with the 
pure gospel spirit may lay this case to heart, may remember 
the lamentable corruptions which attend the conveyance 



8 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of merchaiitlize across the seas, and so abide in the love of 
Christ, that being delivered from the love of money, from 
the entangling expenses of a curious, delicate, luxurious 
life, we may learn contentment with a little, and promote 
the sea-faring life no further than that spirit, which leads 
into all truth, attends us in our proceedings. 



JAMES OTIS. 



[b. West Barnstable, Massachusetts, February 5, 1725. d. May 23, 1783.] 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

The first principle and great end of government being to 
provide for the best good of all the people, this can be done 
only by a supreme legislative and executive ulti- ^j^^ ■RXsktn 
mately in the people or whole community, where of the 
God has placed it ; but the inconveniences, not to British 
say impossibility, attending the consultations and *^°^°^^^^' 
operations of a large body of people, have made it necessary 
to transfer the power of the whole to a few. This necessity 
gave rise to deputation, proxy, or a right of representation. 

A power of legislation, without a power of execution in 
the same or other hands, would be futile and vain. On the 
other hand, a power of execution, supreme or subordinate, 
without an independent legislature, would be perfect des- 
potism. 

The difficulties attending an universal congress, especially 
when society became large, have brought men to consent to 
a delegation of the power of all. The weak and the wicked 
have too often been found in the same interest ; and in most 
nations have not only brought these powers jointly into the 
hands of one, or some few, of their number, but made them 
hereditary in the families of despotic nobles and princes. 

The wiser and more virtuous states have always provided 
that the representation of the people should be numerous. 
Nothing but life and liberty are naturally hereditable. This 
has never been considered by those who have tamely given 
up both into the hands of a tyrannical oligarchy or despotic 
monarchy. 

The analogy between the natural or material, as it is 
called, and the moral world is very obvious. God himself 



10 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

appears to us at some times to cause the intervention or 
combination of a number of simple principles, though never 
when one will answer the end. Gravitation and attraction 
have place in the revolution of the planets, because the one 
would fix them to a centre, and the other would carry them 
off indefinitely ; so in the moral world, the first simple prin- 
ciple is equality and the power of the whole. This will 
answer in small numbers ; so will a tolerably virtuous oli- 
garchy or monarchy. But when the society grows in bulk, 
none of them will answer well singly, and none worse than 
absolute monarchy. It becomes necessary, therefore, as 
numbers increase, to have those several powers properly 
combined, so as from the whole to produce that harmony 
of government so often talked of and wished for, but too 
seldom found in ancient or modern states. The grand polit- 
ical problem in all ages has been to invent the best combi- 
nation or distribution of the supreme powers of legislation 
and execution. Those states have ever made the greatest 
figure, and have been most durable, in which those powers 
have not only been separated from each other, but placed 
each in more hands than one or a few. The Eomans are 
the most shining example, but they never had a balance 
between the senate and the people ; and the want of this is 
generally agreed, by the few who know anything of the 
matter, to have been the cause of their fall. The British 
constitution, in theory and in the present administration of 
it, in general comes nearest the idea of perfection of any 
that has been reduced to practice ; and if the principles of 
it are adhered to, it will, according to the infallible predic- 
tion of Harrington, always keep the Britains uppermost in 
Europe till their only rival nation shall either embrace that 
perfect model of a commonwealth given us by that author, 
or come as near it as Great Britain is. Then indeed, and 
not till then, will that rival and our nation either be eternal 
confederates, or contend in greater earnest than they have 
ever yet done, till one of them shall sink under the power 
of the other, and rise no more. 



PATRICK HENRY. 11 



[b. Studley, Virginia, May 29, 1736. d. June 6, 1799.] 
THE APPEAL TO ARMS. 

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. 
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and 
listen to the song of that syren, till she trans- „ , . 
forms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise Conven- 
men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for tion of 
liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number ^^^^S^tes. 
of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear 
not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal sal- 
vation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may 
cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the 
worst, and to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and 
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of 
judging of the future, but by the past. And judging by the 
past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of 
the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those 
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace 
themselves and the House ? Is it that insidious smile with 
which our petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, 
sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not your- 
selves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this 
gracious reception of our petition comports with these war- 
like preparations which cover our waters and darken our 
land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love 
and reconciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwil- 
ling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win 
back our love ? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These 
are the implements of war and subjugation; the last argu- 
ments to which kings resort. 



12 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if 
its purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can gentle- 
men assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great 
Britain any enemy, iii this quarter of the world, to call for 
all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, she 
has none. They are meant for us ; they can be meant for 
no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us 
those chains which the British ministry have been so long 
forging. And what have we to oppose to them ? Shall we 
try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for the last 
ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject ? 
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of 
which it is capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we 
resort to entreaty and humble supplication ? \Vliat terms 
shall we find which have not been already exhausted ? Let 
us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, 
we have done everything that could be done to avert the 
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned ; we 
have remonstrated ; we have supplicated ; we have pros- 
trated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its 
interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry 
and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted ; our re- 
monstrances have produced additional violence and insult ; 
our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been 
spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In 
vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of 
peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for 
hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve in- 
violate those inestimable privileges for which we have been 
so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the 
noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and 
which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until 
the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must 
fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms, 
and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! 



THOMAS PAINE. 13 



[b. Thetford, England, January 29, 1737. d. June 8, 1809.] 
THE ADVENT OF PEACE. 

The times that tried men's souls are over, and the greatest 
and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously 
and happily accomplished. 

But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety, 

from the tumult of war to the tranquillity of 

., , , . , 1 ^- • The Crisis, 

peace, — though sweet m contemplation, requires 

a gradual composure of the senses to receive it. Even calm- 
ness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly 
upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should 
cease in a moment would leave us in a state rather of won- 
der than enjoyment; and some moments of recollection 
must pass before we could be capable of tasting the felicity 
of repose. There are but few instances in which the mind 
is fitted for sudden transitions ; it takes in its pleasures by 
reflection and comparison, and those must have time to act 
before the relish for new scenes is complete. 

In the present case, the mighty magnitude of the object, 
the various uncertainties of fate it has undergone, the numer- 
ous and complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped, 
the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect before 
us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation. 

To see it in our power to make a world happy, to teach 
mankind the art of being so, to exhibit on the theatre of 
the universe a character hitherto unknown, and to have, 
as it were, a new creation entrusted to our hands, are honors 
that command reflection, and can neither be too highly esti- 
mated, nor too gratefully received. 

In this pause then of reflection, while the storm is 
ceasing, and the long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let 



14 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

US look back on the scenes we have passed, and learn from 
experience what is yet to be done. 

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happi- 
ness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a 
fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause 
was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper 
serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the wisest steps, 
and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not 
every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) 
that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement 
of America corresponds with the character of the revolution. 
Eome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was origi- 
nally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, 
and her oppression of millions made her great. But Amer- 
ica need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the 
stages by which she rose to empire. 

The remembrance then of what is past, if it operates 
rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all am- 
bitions, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The 
world has seen her great in adversity ; struggling, without 
a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated difficulties, 
bravely, nay, proudly encountering distress, and rising in 
resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to 
her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let then 
the world see that she can bear prosperity ; and that her 
honest virtue in time of peace is equal to the bravest vir- 
tue in time of war. 

She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domes- 
tic life, — not under the cypress shade of disappointment, 
but to enjoy, in her own land, and under her own vine, the 
sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil. In this 
situation may she never forget that a fair national reputa- 
tion is of as much importance as independence, that it pos- 
sesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even 
enemies civil, that it gives a dignity which is often supe- 
rior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and 
splendor fail. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 15 



George 2li:as!}m0ton, 

[b. "Westmoreland County, "Virginia, February 22, 1732. d. December 14, 1799.] 

PARTY SPIRIT. 

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are 

useful checks upon the administration of the government, 

and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. 

This, "within certain limits, is probabl"y true; and ^^^^^ 
1 . 1 • Address, 

m governments of a monarchical cast patriotism 

may look "with indulgence, if not "with favor, upon the spirit 
of party. But in those of the popular character, in govern- 
ments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. 
From their natural tendency, it is certfiin there "will always 
be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose ; and, 
there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought 
to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage 
it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigi- 
lance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of 
warming, it should consume. 

It is important, like"wise, that the habits of thinking in a 
free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with 
its administration to confine themselves within their respec- 
tive constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of their 
powers of one department to encroach upon another. The 
spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of 
the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the 
form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of 
that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which pre- 
dominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us 
of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal 
checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and 
distributing it into different dispositions, and constituting 
each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by 



16 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and mod- 
ern, some of them in our own country and under our own 
eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to insti- 
tute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution 
or modification of the constitutional powers be in any par- 
ticular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in a 
Avay which the constitution designates. But let there be 
no change by usurpation ; for though this, in one instance, 
may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon 
by Avhich free governments are destroyed. The precedent 
must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any 
partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time 
yield. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 17 



[b. Shadwell, Virginia, April 2, 1743. d. July 4, 1826.] 

POLITICAL TOLERANCE. 

During the contest of opinion throngh which we have 
passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has 
sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on 
strangers unused to think freely, and to speak ^'''^* 
and to write what they think; but tliis being Ajjjg„ 
now decided by the voice of the nation, announced 
according to the rules of the constitution, all will of course 
arrange themselves u.nder the will of the law, and unite in 
common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear 
in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the 
majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, 
must be reasonable ; that the minority possess their equal 
rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which 
would be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite 
with one heart and one mind ; let us restore to social inter- 
course that harmony and affection without which liberty, 
and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us 
reflect, that having banished from our land that religious 
intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, 
we have yet gained little if we countenance a political in- 
tolerance as despotic, as wicked, and as capable of as bitter 
and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convul- 
sions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of 
infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his 
long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of 
the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful 
shore ; that this should be more felt and feared by some, 
and less by others, and should divide opinions as to meas- 
ures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a 



18 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

difference of principle. We have called by different names 
brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans ; 
we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who wish 
to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let 
them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with 
which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is 
left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest 
men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, 
that this government is not strong enough. But would the 
honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, 
abandon a government which has so far kept us free and 
firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this govern- 
ment, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want 
energy to preserve itself ? I trust not. I believe this, on 
the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe 
it the only one where every man, at the call of law, would 
fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of 
the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes 
it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government 
of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government 
of others ? Or, have we found angels in the form of kings 
to govern him ? Let history answer this question. 



GOOD HUMOR. 

I have mentioned good humor as one of the preservatives 
of our peace and tranquillity. It is among the most effect- 
ual, and its effect is so well imitated and aided. 



Letter to 
T. J. 
dolph. 



artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes 
"an acquisition of first-rate value. In truth, polite- 



ness is artificial good humor; it covers the natural 
want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute 
nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of 
sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little 
conveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 19 

deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration ; it 
is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expres- 
sions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased 
with us as well as themselves. How cheap a jDrice for the 
good will of another ! When this is in return for a rude 
thing said by another, it brings him to his senses, it mor- 
tifies and corrects him in the most salutary way, and places 
him at the feet of your good nature, in the eyes of the 
company. But in stating prudential rules for our govern- 
ment in society, I must not omit the important one, of 
never entering into dispute or argument with another. I 
never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants con- 
vincing the other by argument. I have seen many, of their 
getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. 
Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, 
either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassion- 
ately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in 
argument ourselves. 

It Avas one of the rules Avhich, above all others, made 
Doctor Franklin the most amiable of men in society, "never 
to contradict anybody." If he was urged to announce an 
opinion, he did it rather by asking questions, as if for 
information, or by suggesting doubts. When I hear another 
express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he 
has a right to his opinion, as I to mine ; why should I 
question it ? His error does me no injury, and shall I be- 
come a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument 
to one opinion ? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is 
gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive 
him of the gratification. If he wants inforination, he will 
ask it, and then I will give it in measured terms; but if 
he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute 
the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. 



20 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Jotjn Sag. 

[b. New York, New York, December 12, 1745. d. May 17, 1829.] 

THE OUTLOOK. 

That the time lias been when honest men might, without 

being chargeable with timidity, have doubted the success 

of the present revolution, we admit ; but that 

Circular period is past. The independence of America is 

Letter fro~ 

Congress. 



rom ^^^^^^ ^^ fixed as fate, and the petulant efforts of 



15 ri tain to break it down are as vain and fruitless 
as the raging of the waves which beat against her cliffs. 
Let those who are still afflicted with these doubts consider 
the character and condition of our enemies. Let them re- 
member that we are contending against a kingdom crum- 
bling into pieces ; a nation without public virtue, and a 
people sold to and betrayed by their own representatives ; 
against a prince governed by his passions, and a ministry 
without confidence or wisdom; against armies half paid 
and generals half trusted ; against a government equal only 
to plans of plunder, conflagration, and murder — a govern- 
ment, by the most impious violations of the rights of relig- 
ion, justice, humanity, and mankind, courting the vengeance 
of Heaven and revolting from the protection of Providence. 
Against the fury of these enemies you made successful re- 
sistance, when single, alone, and friendless, in the days of 
weakness and infancy, before your hands had been taught 
to war or your fingers to fight. And can there be any rea- 
son to apprehend that the Divine Disposer of human events, 
after having separated us from the house of bondage, and 
led us safe through a sea of blood towards the land of 
liberty and promise, will leave the work of our ■])olitical 
redemption unfinished, and either permit us to perish in a 
wilderness of difficulties, or suffer us to be carried back in 



JOHN JAY. 21 

chains to that country of oppression, from whose tyranny 
he hath mercifully delivered us with a stretched-out arm ? 

In close alliance with one of the most powerful nations 
in Europe, which has generously made our cause her own, in 
amity with many others, and enjoying the good will of all, 
what danger have we to fear from Britain ? Instead of 
acquiring accessions of territory by conquest, the limits 
of her empire daily contract ; her fleets no longer rule the 
ocean, nor are her armies invincible by land. How many 
of her standards, wrested from the hands of her champions, 
are among your trophies, and have graced the triumphs of 
your troops ? And how great is the number of those who, 
sent to bind you in fetters, have becoane your captives, and 
received their lives at your hands ? In short, whoever 
considers that these States are daily increasing in power ; 
that their armies have become veteran ; that their govern- 
ments, founded in freedom, are established ; that their 
fertile country and their affectionate ally furnish them 
with ample supplies ; that the Spanish monarch, well pre- 
pared for war, with fleets and armies ready for combat, and 
a treasury overflowing with wealth, has entered the lists 
against Britain ; that the other European nations, often 
insulted by her pride, and alarmed at the strides of her 
ambition, have left her to her fate ; that Ireland, wearied 
with her oppression, is panting for liberty ; and even Scot- 
land displeased and uneasy at her edicts : whoever con- 
siders these things, instead of doubting the issue of the 
war, will rejoice in the glorious, the sure, and certain pros- 
pect of success. 



22 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3oi}u ErumiulL 

[b. Woodbury, C'uiinocticut, April 24, 17.J0. d. May 12, 1S31.] 

THE BRITISH ONSLAUGHT. 

[From "McFingal."] 

But now your triumphs all are o'er ; 
For see, from Britain's angry shore, 
With deadly hosts of valor join 
Her Howe, her Clinton, and Burgoyne ! 
As comets thro' th' affrighted skies 
Pour baleful ruin as they rise ; 
As iEtna with infernal roar 
In conflagration SAveeps the shore ; 
Or as Abijah White, when sent 
Our Marshfield friends to represent, 
Himself Avhile dread array involves, 
Commissions, pistols, swords, resolves, 
In awful pomp descending down, 
Bore terror on the factious town : 
Not with less glory and affright, 
Parade these generals forth to fight. 
No more each British colonel runs 
From whizzing beetles as air-guns ; 
Thinks horn-bugs bullets, or, thro' fears, 
Muskitoes takes for musketeers ; 
Nor scapes, as if you'd gain'd su})plies. 
From Beelzebub's Avhole host of flies. 
No bug these warlike hearts appalls ; 
They better know the sound of balls. 
I hear the din of battle bray ; 
The trump of horror makes its way, 
I see afar the sack of cities. 
The gallows strung with Whig committees ; 



JOHN TRUMBULL. 23 

Your moderators triced, like vermin, 

And gate-posts graced with heads of chairmen; 

Your Congress for wave-ofE'rings hanging, 

And Ladders thronged with priests haranguing. 

What pillories glad the Tories' eyes 

With patriot ears for sacrifice ! 

What whipping-posts your chosen race 

Admit successive in embrace, 

While each bears off his sins, alack. 

Like Bunyan's pilgrim, on his back ! 

Where, then, when Tories scarce get clear, 

Shall Whigs and Congresses appear ? 

What rocks and mountains will you call 

To wrap you over with their fall, 

And save your heads, in these sad Aveathers, 

From fire .and sword, and tar and feathers ? 

For lo ! with British troops tar bright. 

Again our Nesbitt heaves in sight ; 

He comes, he comes, your lines to storm. 

And rig your troops in uniform. 

To meet such heroes Avill ye brag, 

With fury arm'd, and feather-bag. 

Who wield their missile pitch and tar 

With engines new in British war ? 

Lo ! where our mighty navy brings 
Destruction on her canvas wings. 
While through the deep the British thunder 
Shall sound th' alarm, to rob and plunder ! 
As Phoebus first, so Homer speaks. 
When he march'd out t' attack the Greeks. 
'Gainst mules sent forth his arrows fatal, 
And slew th' auxiliaries, their cattle : 
So where our ships shall stretch the keel, 
What vanquish'd oxen shall they steal ! 
What heroes, rising from the deep, 
Invade your marshall'd hosts of sheep ; 
Disperse whole troops of horse, and pressing. 



24 JOHX TRUMBULL. 

Make cows surrender at discretion ; 

Attack your hens, like Alexanders, 

And regiments rout of geese and ganders ; 

Or where united arms combine, 

Lead captive many a herd of swine ; 

Then rush in dreadful fury down 

To fire on every seaport town ; 

Display their glory and their wits, 

Fright heljiless children into fits ; 

And stoutly, from the unequal fray, 

Make many a Avoman run awa}-. 



JAMES MADISON. 25 



3amrs flatiiSDit. 

[b. Port Coventry, Virginia, March 16, ITol. d. June 28, 1836.] 

THE REPUBLICAN EXPERIMENT. 

Hearkex not to the unnatural voice wliieli tells you 
that the people of America, knit together as they are by so 
many cords of affection, can no longer live together 
as members of the same family; can no longer I 
continue the mutual guardians of their mutual 
happiness ; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, 
respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the 
voice v/hich petulantly tells you that the form of govern- 
ment recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the 
political world ; that it has never yet had a place in the 
theories of the wildest projectors ; that it rashly attempts 
what it is impossible to accomplish. iSTo, my countrymen : 
shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your 
hearts against the poison which it conveys. The kindred 
blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the 
mingled blood Avhich they have shed in defence of their 
sacred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at 
the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if 
novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming 
of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash 
of all attempts, is that ' of rending us in pieces, in order 
to preserve our liberties, and promote our happiness. But 
why is the experiment of an extended republic to be re- 
jected, merely because it may comprise Avhat is new ? Is 
it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they 
have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times 
and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration 
for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the sug- 
gestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their 



26 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

own situation, and the lessons of their own experience ? 
To this manly spirit posterity Avill be indebted for the x>os- 
session, and the world for the example, of the numerous 
innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of 
private rights and public happiness. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 27 



^Icxanticr HMmtltoiu 

[b. Nevis, West Indies, Janimry 11, IT.M. it. July 12, 1804.] 
THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

Gentlemen indulge too many unreasonable apprehensions 
of danger to the State governments ; they seem to suppose 
that the moment you put men into a national coun- 
cil they become corrupt and tyrannical, and lose Speech in the 
all their affection for their fellow-citizens. But Co^entLn 
can we imagine that the Senators will ever be so 
insensible of their own advantage as to sacrifice the genuine 
interest of their constituents ? The State governments are 
essentially necessary to the form and spirit of the general 
system. As long, therefore, as Congress has a full convic- 
tion of this necessity, they must, even upon principles 
purely national, have as firm an attachment to the one as 
to the other. This conviction can never leave them unless 
they become madmen. While the constitution continues to 
be read, and its principle known, the States must, by every 
rational man, be considered as essential, component parts 
of the Union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the 
former to the latter is wholly inadmissible. 

The objectors do not advert to the natural strength and 
resources of State governments, which will ever give them 
an important superiority over the general government. If 
we compare the nature of their different powers, or the 
means of popular influence which each possesses, Ave shall 
find the advantage entirely on the side of the States. This 
consideration, important as it is, seems to have been little 
attended to. The aggregate number of representatives 
throughout the States may be two thousand. Their per- 
sonal influence will, therefore, be proportionably more exten- 
sive than that of one or two hundred men in Congress. The 



28 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

State establishments of civil and military officers of every 
description, infinitely surpassing in number any possible 
correspondent establishments in the general government, 
will create such an extent and complication of attachments 
as will ever secure the predilection and support of the 
people. Whenever, therefore. Congress shall meditate any 
infringement of the State constitutions, the great body of 
the people will naturally take part with their domestic rep- 
resentatives. Can the general government withstand such 
an united opposition ? Will the people suffer themselves 
to be stripped of their privileges ? Will they suffer their 
legislatures to be reduced to a shadow and a name ? The 
idea is shocking to common sense. 

From the circumstances already explained, and many 
others which might be mentioned, results a complicated, 
irresistible check, which must ever support the existence 
and importance of the State governments. The danger, if 
any exists, flows from an opposite source. The probable 
evil is, that the general government will be too dependent on 
the State legislatures, too much governed by their preju- 
dices, and too obsequious to their humors ; that the States, 
with every power in their hands, will make encroachments 
on the national authority till the Union is weakened and 
dissolved. 



FISHER AMES. 29 



JFisijrr ^mrs. 

[b. Dedham, Massachusetts, April 0, 1758. d. July 4, 1S08.] 

NATIONAL OBLIGATIONS. 

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the 
spot where a man was born ? Are the very clods where we 
tread entitled to this ardent preference because gpgechon 
they are greener ? No, sir, this is not the character the British 
of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It Treaty, 
is an extended self-love, mingling with all the en- ' ' 
joyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest fila- 
ments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, 
because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we 
see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable 
image of our country's honor. Every good c^iizen makes 
that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, 
but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence, 
and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. 
For, what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when 
a state renounces the principles that constitute their secu- 
rity. Or if his. life should not be invaded, what would its 
enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers 
and dishonored in his own ? Could he look with affection 
and veneration to such a country as his parent ? The sense 
of having one would die within him ; he would blush for 
his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would 
be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land. 
I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations 
to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlight- 
ened period where it is violated, there are none where it is 
decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of 
governments. It is observed by barbarians — a whiff of 
tobacco-smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely bind- 



30 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

ing force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce 
may be bought for money, but when ratified, even Algiers 
is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. 
Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the prin- 
ciples of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a na- 
tion to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a 
resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of 
justice could live again, collect together and form a society, 
they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to 
make justice, that justice under which they fell, the funda- 
mental law of their state. They would perceive it was their 
interest to make others respect, and they would therefore 
soon pay some respect themselves, to the obligations of good 
faith. 



JOEL BARLOW. 31 



3orl Barlob)^ 

[b. Redding, Counccticut, March 24, 1754. d. December 24, 1812.] 

THE HUSKING. 

[From "Hasty Pudding."] 

The days grow short ; but though the fallen sun 
To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, 
Night's pleasant shades his various tasks prolong, 
And yield new subjects to my various song. 
For now, the corn-house fiU'd, the harvest home, 
Th' invited neighbors to the husking come ; 
A frolic scene, whose work, and mirth, and play. 
Unite their charms to chase the hours away. 

AVhere the huge heap lies centred in the hall. 
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall. 
Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux 
Alternate rang'd, extend in circling rows, 
Assume their seats, the solid mass attack ; 
The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack ; 
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound. 
And the sweet cider trips in silence round. 

The laws of husking ev'ry wight can tell ; 
And sure no laws he ever keeps so well : 
For each red ear, a gen'ral kiss he gains, 
With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains. 
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast. 
Bed as her lips, and taper as her waist. 
She walks the round, and culls one favor'd beau. 
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. 
Various the sports, as are the wits and brains 
Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains ; 
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, 
And he that gets the last ear wins the day. 



32 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Meanwhile the house-wife urges all her care, 
The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare. 
The sifted meal already waits her hand, 
The milk is strain'd, the bowls in order stand, 
The fire flames high ; and, as a pool (that takes 
The headlong stream that o'er the mill-dain breaks) 
Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils. 
So the next caldron rages, roars, and boils. 

First with clean salt she seasons well the food. 
Then strews the flour, and thickens all the flood. 
Long o'er the simm'ring fire she lets it stand ; 
To stir it well demands a stronger hand ; 
The husband takes his turn ; and round and round 
The ladle flies ; at last the toil is crown'd ; 
When to the board the thronging buskers pour, 
And take their seats as at the corn before. 



INVOCATION TO FREEDOM. 

[From "Tue Columbiad."] 

Sun of the moral world ! effulgent source 
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force. 
Soul-searching Freedom ! here assume thy stand, 
And radiate hence to every distant land ; 
Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife, 
The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life, 
Spring from unequal sway, and how they fly 
Before the splendor of thy peaceful eye ; 
Unfold at last the genuine social plan, 
The mind's full scope, the dignity of man. 
Bold nature bursting thro' her long disguise, 
And nations daring to be just and wise. 
Yes ! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea 
Yield or withhold their various gifts for thee ; 
Protected Industry beneath thy reign 



JOEL BARLOW. 33 

Leads all the virtues in her filial train ; 

Courageous Probity with brow serene, 

And Temperance calm presents her jilacid mien; 

Contentment, Moderation, Labor, Art, 

Mould the new man and humanize his heart ; 

To public plenty private ease dilates, 

Domestic peace to harmony of states. 

Protected Industry, careering far, 

Detects the cause and cures the rage of war. 

And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves, 

Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves. 



34 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



[b. Germantown, Virginia, September 24, 17-J5. d. July 6, 1835.] 

CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 

No man ever appeared upon the theatre of piiblie action, 
whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose princi- 
ples Avere more perfectly free from the contamina- 

'® °, tion of those selfish and unworthy passions which 

Washington, , , , . . , . , "^ f_ 

hnd their nourishment in the conflicts of party. 

Having no views which required concealment, his real and 
avowed motives were the same ; and his Avhole correspond- 
ence does not furnish a single case from which even an 
enemy would infer that lie w\t,s capable, under any circum- 
stances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No 
truth can be uttered Avith more confidence than that his 
ends were always upright, and his means always pure. 

He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles 
were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign 
governments and to his own countrymen were always sincere. 
In him was fully exemplified the real distinction which for- 
ever exists between wisdom and cunning, and the importance 
as well as truth of the maxim that "honesty is the best 
policy." 

If Washington possessed ambition, that passion was, in 
his Ijosom, so regulated by principles, or controlled by cir- 
cumstances, that it Avas neither vicious nor turbulent. In- 
trigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, 
nor Avas personal aggrandizement its object. The various 
high and important stations to Avhich he Avas called by the 
public voice, Avere unsought by himself ; and in consenting 
to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general 
conviction that the interests of his country Avould be 
thereby promoted, than to his particular inclination. 

Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American peo- 



JOHN MARSHALL. 35 

pie, the extravagant praises which were bestowed upon him, 
nor the inveterate opposition and malignant calumnies which 
he experienced, had any visible influence upon his conduct. 
The cause is to be looked for in the texture of his mind. 

In him, that innate and unassuming modesty Avhich adu- 
lation would have offended, which the voluntary plaudits 
of millions could not betray into indiscretion, and which 
never obtruded upon others his claim to superior considera- 
tion, was happily blended with a high and correct sense of 
personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of that re- 
spect which is due to station. Without exertion, he could 
maintain the happy medium between that arrogance which 
wounds, and that facility Avhich allows the office to be 
degraded in the person who fills it. 

It is impossible to contemplate the great events which 
have occurred in the United States under the auspices of 
Washington, without ascribing them, in some measure, to 
him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue of a war, 
against the successful termination of which there were so 
many i)robabilities ; of the good which was produced, and 
the ill which was avoided during an a.dministration fated 
to contend with the strongest prejudices that a combination 
of circumstances and of passions could produce ; of the con- 
stant favor of the great mass of his fellow-citizens, and of 
the confidence which, to the last moment of his life, they 
reposed in liim; — the answer, §o far as the causes may be 
found in his character, will fiirnish a lesson well meriting 
the attention of those who are candidates for political fame. 

EndoAved by nature with a sound judgment, and an accu- 
rate, discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious at- 
tention which made him perfectly master of those subjects, 
in all their relations, on which he Avas to decide ; and this 
essential quality Avas guided by an unvarying sense of moral 
right, Avhich Avoidd tolerate the employment only of those 
means that Avould bear the most rigid examination ; by a 
fairness of intention which neither sought nor required dis- 
guise ; and by a purity of virtue Avhich Avas not only un- 
tainted, but unsuspected. 



36 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



PfjtUp jFrrnrau, 

[b. New York, New York, January 2, 1752. d. December 18, 1832.] 

THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE. 

Fair flower that dost so comely grow, 

Hid in the silent, dull retreat. 
Untouched thy honey'd blossoms blow, 
Unseen thy little branches greet ; 
No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 

By Nature's self in white arrayed, 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
And planted here the guardian shade, 
And sent soft Avaters murmuring by ; 
Thu.s cj^uietly thy summer goes — 
Thy days declining to repose. 

Sniit with those charms, that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom ; 
They died — nor were those flowers more gay — 
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 

From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came ; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
For when you die you are the same ; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The frail duration of a flower. / 



PIIILir FRENEAU. 37 

TO THE MEMORY OF THE AMERICANS WHO FELL 
AT EUTAW. 

At Eiitaw Springs the valiant died ; 

Their limbs with dust are cover'd o'er ; 
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide — 

How many heroes are no more ! 
If, in this wreck of ruin, they 

Can yet be thought to claim the tear, 
Oh, smite your gentle breast and say, 

The friends of freedom slumber here ! 

Thou Avho shalt trace this bloody plain. 

If goodness rules thy generous breast, 
Sigh for the wasted rural reign ; 

Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest ! 
Stranger, their humble graves adorn ; 

You too may fall, and ask a tear ; 
'Tis not the beauty of the morn 

That proves the evening shall be clear. 

They saw their injured country's wo — 

The flaming town, the wasted field. 
Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe ; 

They took the spear, but left the shield. 
Led by the conquering genius, Greene, 

The Britons they compell'd to fly ; 
None distant viewed the fatal plain ; 

None grieved in such a cause to die. 

But like the Parthians, famed of old. 

Who, flying, still their arrows threw. 
These routed Britons, full as bold, 

Ketreated, and retreating slew. 
Now rest in peace, our patriot band ; 

Though far from Nature's limits thrown, 
We trust they find a happier land, 

A brighter sunshine of their own. 



38 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Cl}arlrs 33rorfetifn 33rob]n. 

[b. Philadelphia, Penusylvauia, January 17, 1771. d. February 22, 1810.] 
IN THE CAVERN. 

I xow exerted my voice, and cried as loud as my wasted 
strength would admit. Its echoes were sent back to me in 
broken and confused sounds and from above. This 
Edgar effort was casual, but some parts of that uncer- 

tamty in which I was involved was instantly dis- 
pelled by it. In passing through the cavern on the former 
day, I have mentioned the verge of the pit at which I ar- 
rived. To acquaint me as far as Avas possible with the 
dimensions of the place, I had halloed with all my force, 
knowing that sound is reflected according to the distance 
and relative positions of the substances from which it is 
repelled. 

The effect produced by my voice on this occasion resem- 
bled, Avith remarkable exactness, the effect which was then 
produced. 

Was I, then, shut up in the same cavern ? Had I reached 
the brink of the same precipice and been thrown headlong 
into that vacuity? Whence else could arise the bruises 
which I had received, but from my fall? Yet all remem- 
brance of my journey hither was lost. I had determined to 
explore this cave on the ensuing day, but my memory in- 
formed me not that this intention had been carried into effect. 
Still, it Avas only possible to conclude that I had come hither 
on my intended expedition, and had been throAvn by another, 
or had by some ill chance, fallen, into the pit. 

This opinion Avas conformable to what I had already ob- 
served. The pavement and Avails were rugged like those of 
the footing and sides of the cave through Avhich I had for- 
merly passed. 



CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 39 

But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe 
to Avhieh I was now reserved ? The sides of this pit were 
inaccessible; human footsteps would never wander into 
these recesses. My friends were unapprized of my forlorn 
state. Here I sliould continue till wasted by famine. In 
this grave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable 
agonies, and then perish forever. 

The inroads of hunger were already experienced; and 
this knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity iirged 
me to frenzy. I had none but capricious and unseen fate 
to condemn. The author of my distress, and the means 
he had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible. 
Surely my senses were fettered or depraved by some spell. 
I was still asleep, and this was merely a tormenting vision ; 
or madness had seized me, and the darkness that environed 
and the hunger that afflicted me existed only in my own 
distempered imagination. 

The consolation of these doubts could not last long. 
Every hour added to the proof that my perceptions were 
real. IVIy hunger speedily became ferocious. I tore the 
linen of my shirt between my teeth, and swallowed the 
fragments. I felt a strong propensity to bite the flesh from 
my arm. IVIy heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered 
on the delight I should experience in rending some living 
animal to pieces, and drinking its blood, and grinding its 
quivering fibres between my teeth. 

This agony had already passed beyond the limits of 
endurance. 

I saw that time, instead of bringing respite or relief, 
would only aggravate my wants, and that my only remain- 
ing hope was to die before I should be assaulted by the last 
extremes of famine. I now recollected that a tomahawk 
was at hand, and rejoiced in the possession of an instrument 
by which I could so effectually terminate my sufferings. 

I took it in my hand, moved its edge over my fingers, and 
reflected on the force that was required to make it reach 
my heart. I investigated the spot where it should enter, 



40 AyfEEICAN LITERATURE. 

and strove to fortify myself Avith resolution to repeat the 
stroke a second or third time, if the first should prove 
insufficient. I was sensible that I might fail to inflict a 
mortal Avound, but delighted to consider that the blood 
which would be made to flow Avould finally release me, and 
that meanwhile my pains would be alleviated by swallowing 
this blood. 

You will not wonder that I felt some reluctance to em- 
ploy so fatal though indispensable a remedy. I once more 
ruminated on the possibility of rescuing myself by other 
means. I now reflected that the upper termination of the 
wall could not be at an immeasurable distance from the 
pavement. I had fallen from a height ; but if that height 
had been considerable, instead of being merely bruised, 
should I not have been dashed into pieces ? 

Gleams of hope burst anew upon my soul. Was it not 
possible, I asked, to reach the top of this pit ? The sides 
were rugged and uneven. Would not their projectures and 
abruptnesses serve me as steps by Avhich I might ascend in 
safety ? This expedient was to be tried Avithout delay. 
Shortly my strength Avould fail, and my doom Avould be 
irrevocably sealed. 

I will not enumerate my laborious efforts, my alterna- 
tions of despondency and confidence, the eager and un- 
wearied scrutiny Avith AAdiich I examined the surface, the 
attempts Avhich I made, and the failures Avhich, for a time, 
siicceeded each other. A hundred times, Avhen I had 
ascended some feet from the bottom, I was compelled to 
relinquish my undertaking by the untenable smoothness of 
the spaces which remained to be gone over. A hundred 
times I thrcAv myself, exhausted by fatigue and my pains, 
on the ground. The consciousness was gradually restored 
that, till I had attempted every part of the Avail, it Avas 
absurd to despair, and I again drew my tottering limbs 
and aching joints to that part of the Avail Avhich had not 
been surveyed. 

At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found some- 



CHARLES r.ROCKDEN BROWN, 41 

Avhat that seemed like a recession in the wall. It was 
possible that this was the top of the cavity, and this might 
be the avenue to liberty. INIy heart leaped with joy, and I 
proceeded to climb the Avail. No undertaking could be con- 
ceived more arduous than this. The space between the 
verge and the floor was nearly smooth. The verge Avas 
higher frora the bottom than my head. The only means of 
ascending that Avere offered me were by my hands, Avith 
Avhich I could draw myself upward, so as, at length, to 
maintain \\\y hold Avith my feet. 

My efforts Avere indefatigable, and at length I placed 
myself on the verge. When this Avas accomplished, my 
strength Avas nearly gone. Had I not found space enough 
beyond this brink to stretch myself at length, I shoidd 
unavoidably have fallen backAvard into the pit, and all my 
pains had served no other end than to deepen my despair 
and hasten my destruction. 

What impediments and perils remained to be encountered 
I could not judge. I was noAV inclined to forebode the 
Avorst. The inter\'al of repose Avhich Avas necessary to be 
taken, in order to recruit my strength, Avould accelerate 
the ravages of famine, and leave me Avithout the poAver to 
proceed. 

In this state, I once more consoled myself that an instru- 
ment of death was at hand. I had drawn up Avith me the 
tomahaAvk, being sensible that, should this impediment be 
overcome, others might remain that Avould prove insuper- 
able. Before I employed it, hoAvever, I cast my eyes Avildly 
and languidly around. The darkness Avas no less intense 
than in the pit below, and yet two objects Avere distinctly 
seen. 

They resembled a fixed and obscure flame. They were 
motionless. Though lustrous themselves, they created no 
illumination around them. This circumstance, added to 
others, Avhich reminded me of similar objects noted on 
former occasions, immediately explained the nature of Avhat 
I beheld. They were the eyes of a panther. 



42 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

Thus had I struggled to obtain a post where a savage 
was lurking, and waited only till my efforts should place 
me within reach of his fangs. The first impulse was to 
arm myself against this enemy. The desperateness of my 
condition was for a moment forgotten. The weapon which 
was so lately lifted against my own bosom was now raised 
to defend my life against the assault of another. 

There was no time for deliberation and delay. In a mo- 
ment he might spring from his station and tear me to 
pieces. My utmost speed might not enable me to reach 
him where he sat, but merely to encounter his assault. I 
did not reflect how far my strength was adequate to save 
me. All the force that remained was mustered up and ex- 
erted in a throw. 

No one knows the poAvers that are latent in his constitu- 
tion. Called forth by imminent dangers, our efforts fre- 
quently exceed our most sanguine belief. Though tottering 
on the verge of dissolution, and apparently unable to crawl 
from this spot, a force was exerted in this throw, probably 
greater than I had ever before exerted. It was resistless 
and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between those 
glowing orbs. It penetrated the skull, and the animal fell, 
struggling and shrieking, on the ground. 

My ears quickly informed me when his pangs were at an 
end. His cries and his convulsions lasted for a moment, 
and then ceased. The effect of his voice, in these subter- 
ranean abodes, was unspeakably rueful. 



WILLIAM WIRT. 43 



maimm mixt 

[b. Bladensburg, Maryland, November 8, 1772. d. February 18, 1834.] 

PATRICK HENRY'S ELOQUENCE. 

Ix what did liis peculiar excellence as an orator consist ? 
In what consisted that unrivalled power of speaking, which 
all who ever heard him admit him to have pos- 
sessed ? The reader is already apprized that the ^^^® °*' 
author of these sketches never had the advantage gg^j.^, 
of hearing Mr. Henry, and that no entire speech 
of his was ever extant, either in print or writing : hence 
there are no materials for minute and exact analysis. This 
inquiry, however, is natural, and has been directed, without 
success, to many of the most discriminating of Mr. Henry's 
admirers. Their answers are as various as the complexion 
of their own character, each preferring that property from 
which he had himself derived the most enjoyment. Some 
ascribe his excellence wholly to his manner ; others, in great 
part, to the originality and soundness of his matter. And 
among the admirers, in both classes, there are not two who 
concur in assigning the pre-eminence to the same quality. 
C)f his matter, one will admire the plainness and strength 
of his reasoning; another, the concentrated spirit of his 
aphorisms ; a third, his wit ; a fourth, his pathos ; a fifth, 
the intrinsic beauty of his imagination : so in regard to his 
manner, one will place his excellence in his articulation and 
emphasis ; a second, in the magic power with which he 
infused the tones of his voice into the nerves of his hearers, 
and riveted their attention. The truth, therefore, probably 
is that it was not in any singular charm, either of matter 
or manner, that we are to look for the secret of his power ; 
but that, like Pope's definition of beauty, it was " the joint 
force and full result of all." 



44 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

If, however, we are to consider as really and entirely his, 
those speeches which have already been given in his name 
to the public, or are now prepared for them, there can be 
no difficulty in deciding that his power must have consisted 
principally in his delivery. We know what extraordinary 
effects have been produced by the mere manner of an orator, 
without any uncommon weight or worth of matter. . . . 

The basis of Mr. Henry's intellectual character was strong 
natural sense. His knowledge of human nature was, as we 
have seen, consummate. His wisdom was that of observa- 
tion rather than of reading. 

His fancy, although sufficiently pregnant to furnish sup- 
plies for the occasion, was not so exuberant as to oppress 
him with its productions. 

He was never guilty of the fault, with which Corinna is 
said to have reproached her rival Pindar, of pouring his 
vase of flowers all at once upon the ground ; on the con- 
trary, their beauty and their excellence were fully observed, 
from their rarity, and the happiness with which they were 
distributed through his speeches. 

His feelings were strong, yet completely under his com- 
mand ; they rose up to the occasion, but were never suffered 
to overflow it ; his language was often careless, sometimes 
incorrect ; yet upon the whole it was pure and perspicuous, 
giving out his thoughts in full and clear proportion ; free 
from affectation and frequently beautiful ; strong without 
effort, and adapted to the occasion ; nervous in argument, 
burning in passion, and capable of matching the loftiest 
flights of his genius. . . . 

His eloquence was indeed a mighty and a roaring torrent : 
it had not, however, that property of Horace's stream, labi- 
tur et labetur, in oinne volubis oevum — on the contrary, it 
commonly ran by in half an hour. But it bore a striking 
resemblance to the eloquence of Lord Chatham : it was a 
short but bold and most terrible assault, — a vehement, im- 
petuous, and overwhelming burst, — a magnificent meteor, 
which shot majestically across the heavens from pole to 
pole, and straight expired in a glorious blaze. 



JAMES KENT. 45 



James %tnt 

[b. Putnam County, New York, July .01, 1703. d. December 12, 1847.] 
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 

The tendency of some modern theories of education is 
to depress the study of ancient languages and literature, 
and to raise up in their stead a more exclusive pj^. ^^^^ 
devotion to the exact sciences and mechanical phi- Zappa 
losophy. But this would be to prefer the study Address, 
of the laws of matter to the study of man as an 
intellectual, moral, and accountable being. And when we 
duly consider how unspeakably important, and how intensely 
interesting is the knowledge of our race, of their history, 
their governments, their laws, their duties, their languages, 
and their final destiny, we shall not be disposed to under- 
value literary pursuits, or to think lightly of the cultivation 
of the moral sciences and the study of the rights and his- 
tory of man as a member of civil society. Nothing con- 
tributes more to elevate and adorn the character of a nation 
than the refinements of taste, the embellishments of the 
arts, the spirit of freedom, the love of justice, and the study 
and imitation of those exalted endowments and illustrious 
actions, of which history furnishes the examples, and which 
" give ardor to virtue and confidence to truth." 

But I wish not to be misunderstood. I entertain no nar- 
row or hostile prejudice to a course of scientific education. 
Such a course is adapted to the wants and business of so- 
ciety, and this college has very wisely met on that subject 
the spirit of the times, and given a more extended and 
closer attention than formerly to the various branches of 
the mathematics and of the physical sciences. No one 
can contemplate, without astonishment and admiration, the 
splendid discoveries and improvements which have been 



46 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

made, ever since the beginning of tlie present century, in 
astronomy, electricity, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and 
the mechanic arts, nor will he be destitute of a glow of 
gratitude for the skilful and triumphant application of 
those sciences to commercial, agricultural, manufacturing 
and domestic purj)oses. They have contributed in a won- 
derful degree to abridge labor, facilitate intercourse, accu- 
mulate products, enlarge commerce, multiply the comforts 
of life, and elevate the power and character of the nation. 
My only wish is that science and literature may flourish in 
concert, and the one is not to regard the other as a useless 
or dangerous rival. They are necessary helps to each other ; 
and he who deals constantly in matters of fact, with strict 
method and patient induction, will find his Avhole moral 
constitution to stand greatly in need, from time to time, 
of the invigorating warmth and impulse of the creations of 
genius. The college was founded with the generous inten- 
tion of teaching in due proportion literature and science, 
and this is all that we can wish or ought to contend for. 
If literature eloquently recommends and elegantly adorns 
science, the latter supplies that knowledge of the laws of 
the visible creation, and of those astonishing combinations 
by which it is directed, that imparts to literature its highest 
dignity. Science furnishes arguments and helps to ethics 
and to some parts of civil jurisprudence, and it supplies 
eloquence and poetry with much of that beautiful, affecting, 
and sublime imagery, which accompanies them in their most 
animated strains and loftiest effusions. 



JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 47 



Sosrpi) l^otiman ©rafec, 

[h. Xew York, New York, Aui;ust 7, 1795. U. September 21, 1820.] 

A FAIRY MEETING. 
[Fkom " The Culprit Fay."] 

The stars are on the moving stream, 

And fling as its ripples gently flow, 
A burnished length of wavy beam 

In an eel-like, spiral line below ; 
The winds are whist, and the owl is still, 

The bat in the shelvy rock is hid. 
And nought is heard on the lonely hill 
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill 

Of the gauze- winged katy-did ; 
And the })laint of the wailing whip-poor-will. 

Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, 
Ever a note of Avail and wo. 

Till morning spreads her rosy Aviugs, 
And earth and sky in her glances glow. 

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell ; 
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ; 
He has counted them all Avith click and stroke. 
Deep in the heart of the mountain oak. 
And he has aAvakened the sentry elve 

Who sleeps Avith him in the hau^nted tree, 
To bid him ring the hour of twelve. 

And call the fays to their revelry ; 
TAvelve small strokes on his tinkling bell — 
('TAvas made of the Avhite snail's pearly shell : — ) 
" Midnight comes, and all is well ! 

Hither, hither, wing your way ! 

'Tis the daAvn of the fairy day." 



48 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

They come from beds of lichen green, 
They creep from the mullein's velvet screen; 

Some on the backs of beetles fly 
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, 

Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, 
And rock'd about in the evening breeze ; 

Some from the hum-bird's downy nest — 
They had driven him out by elfin power, 

And pillowed on plume of his rainboAV breast. 
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour ; 

Some had lain in the scoop of the rock. 
With glittering ising-stars iidaid ; 

And some had opened the four-o'clock, 
And stole Avithin its purple shade. 
And now they throng the moonlight glade, 

Above — below — on every side. 
Their little minim forms arrayed 

In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride ! 



NO All WE BISTER. 49 



[b. Hartford, Comicclicut, October 16, IT-JS. d. May 2S, lS4o.] 
THE STANDARD OF SPEECH. 

Whatever predilection the Ainerieaiis may have for 
their native European tongues, and particularly the 1 British 
J.. descendants for the English, yet several circum- 

tions on the stances render a future separation of the Anieri- 
English can tongue from the English, necessary and una- 
anguage. voidable. The vicinity of the European nations, 
with the uninterrupted communication in peace and the 
changes of dominion in Avar, are gradually assimilating their 
respective languages. The English with others is suffering 
continual alterations. America, placed at a distance from 
those nations, will feel in a much less degree, the influence 
of the assimilating causes ; at the same time, numerous 
local causes, such as a new country, new associations of 
people, new combinations of ideas in arts and science, and 
some intercourse with tribes wholly unknown in Europe, 
Avill introduce new words into the American tongue. These 
causes will produce, in a course of time, a -language in North 
America as different from the future language of England 
as the modern Dutch, Danish, and Swedish are from the 
German, or from one another; like remote branches of a 
tree springing from the same stock, or rays of light, shot 
from the same centre, and diverging from each other in 
proportion to their distance from the point of separation. 

Whether the inhabitants of America can be brought to a 
perfect uniformity in the pronunciation of words, it is not 
easy to predict ; but it is certain that no attempt of the kind 
has been made, and an experiment, begun and pursued on 
the right principles, is the only way to decide the question. 
Schools in Great Britain have gone far towards demolish- 



60 AMEBIC AX LITERATURE. 

ing local dialects — commerce has also had. its influence — 
and in America these causes, operating more generally, must 
have a proportional effect. 

In many parts of America, people at present attempt to 
copy the English phrases and pronunciation — an attempt 
that is favored by their habits, their prepossessions, and the 
intercourse between the two countries. This atteinjjt has, 
within the period of a few years, produced a multitude of 
changes in these particulars, especially among the leading 
classes of people. These changes make a difference between 
the language of the higher and common ranks, and indeed 
between the same ranks in different states, as the rage for 
copying the English does not prevail ecjually in every part 
of North America. 

But besides the reasons already assigned to prove this 
imitation absurd, there is a difficulty attending it which 
will defeat the end proposed by its advocates ; which is, 
that the English themselves have no standard of pronuncia- 
tion, nor can they ever have one on the plan they propose. 
The authors, who have attempted to give us a standard, 
make the practice of the court and stage in London the sole 
criterion of propriety in speaking. An attempt to establish 
a standard on this foundation is both unjust and idle. It 
is unjust, because it is abridging the nation of its rights. 
The general practice of a nation is the rule of propriety, 
and this practice should at least be consulted in so impor- 
tant a matter as that of making laws for speaking. While 
all men are upon a footing and no singularities are accounted 
vulgar or ridiculous, every man enjoys perfect liberty. But 
when a particular set of men, in exalted stations, undertake 
to say, " we are the standards of propriety and elegance, and 
if all men do not conform to our practice they shall be ac- 
counted vulgar and ignorant," they take a very great liberty 
with the rules of the language and the rights of civility. 

But an attempt to fix a standard on the practice of any 
particular class of people is highly absurd; as a friend of 
mine once observed, it is like fixing a light-house on a float- 



NOAH WEBSTER. 51 

ing island. It is an attempt to fix that which is in itself 
variable ; at least it must be variable so long as it is sup- 
posed that a local practice has no standard but a local prac- 
tice, that is, no standard but itself. While this doctrine is 
believed, it will be impossible for a nation to follow as fast 
as the standard changes — for if the gentlemen at court con- 
stitute a standard, they are above it themselves, and their 
practice must shift with their passions and their whims. 

But this is not all. If the practice of a few men in the 
capital is to be the standard, a knowledge of this must be 
communicated to the whole nation. Who shall do this ? 
An able compiler perhaps attempts to give this practice in a 
dictionary ; but it is probable that the pronunciation, even at 
court or on the stage, is not uniform. The compiler there- 
fore must follow his particular friends and patrons, in which 
case he is sure to be opposed and the authority of his stand- 
ard called in question ; or he must give two pronunciations 
as the standard, which leaves the student in the same un- 
certainty as it found him. Both these events have actually 
taken place in England, with respect to the most approved 
standards ; and of course no one is universally followed. 

Besides, if language must vary, like fashions, at the caprice 
of a court, we must have our standard dictionaries repub- 
lished with the fashionable pronunciation, at least once in 
five years ; otherwise a gentleman in the country will become 
intolerably vulgar by not being in a situation to adopt the 
fashion of the day. The new editions of them will super- 
sede the old, and we shall have our pronunciation to relearn, 
with the polite alterations, which are generally corruptions. 

Such are the consequences of attempting to make a local 
practice the standard of language in a nation. The attempt 
must keep the language in perpetual fluctuation, and the 
learner in uncertainty. 

If a standard therefore cannot be fixed on local and vari- 
able custom, on what shall it be fixed ? If the most emi- 
nent speakers are not to direct our practice, where shall we 
look for a guide ? The answer is extremely easy ; the rules 



52 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of the language itself, and the general practice of the na- 
tion, constitute propriety in speaking. If we examine the 
structure of any language, we shall find a certain principle 
of analogy running through the whole. We shall find in 
English that similar combinations of letters have usually 
the same pronunciation, and that words having the same 
terminating syllable generally have the accent at the same 
distance from that termination. 

These principles of analogy were not the result of design 
— they must have been the effect of accident, or that ten- 
dency which all men feel towards uniformity. But the 
principles, when established, are productive of great con- 
venience, and become an authority superior to the arbitrary 
decisions of any man or class of men. There is one excep- 
tion only to this remark. When a deviation from analogy 
has become the universal practice of a nation, it then takes 
place of all rules and becomes the standard of propriety. 

The two points, therefore, which I conceive to be the 
basis of a standard in speaking, are these — universal undis- 
puted practice, and the principle of analogy. Universal 
practice is generally, perhaps always, a rule of propriety ; 
and in disputed points, where people differ in opinion and 
practice, analogy should always decide the controversy. 

These are authorities to which all men will submit — they 
are superior to the opinions and caprices of the great, and 
to the negligence and ignorance of the multitude. The 
authority of individuals is always liable to be called in 
question, but the unanimous consent of a nation, and a 
fixed principle interwoven with the very construction of a 
language, coeval and coextensive with it, are like the com- 
mon laws of a land or the immutable rules of morality, the 
propriety of which every man, however refractory, is forced 
to acknowledge, and to which most men will readily submit. 
Fashion is usually the child of caprice and the being of a 
day ; principles of propriety are founded in the very nature of 
things, and remain unmoved and unchanged, amidst all the 
fluctuations of human affairs and the revolutions of time. 



WILLI A3I ELLERY C MANNING. 53 



SEilliam lEllrrg C!)anning. 

[b. Newport, Rhode Island, April 7, 17S0. d. October 2, 1842.] 

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

Free institutions contribute in no small degree to freedom 
and force of mind, by teaching the essential equality of 
men and their right and duty to govern them- 
selves ; and I cannot but consider the superiority °P'"*°^ 
' . . . i Freedom. 

of an elective government as consisting very much 

in the testimony which it bears to these ennobling truths. 
It has often been said that a good code of laws, and not the 
form of government, is what determines a people's happi- 
ness. But good laws, if not springing from the community, 
if imposed by a master, wou^ld lose much of their value. 
The best code is that which has its origin in the will of the 
people who obey it ; which, whilst it speaks with authority, 
still recognizes self-government as the primary right and 
duty of a rational being, and which thus cherishes in the 
individual, be his condition what it may, a just self-respect. 

We may learn that the chief good and the most precious 
fruit of civil liberty is spiritual freedom and power, by 
considering what is the chief evil of tyranny. I know that 
tyranny does evil by invading men's outward interests, by 
making property and life insecure, by robbing the laborer 
to pamper the noble and king. 

But its worst influence is within. Its chief curse is that 
it breaks and tames the spirit, sinks man in his own eyes, 
takes away vigor of thought and action, substitutes for 
conscience an outward rule, makes him abject, cowardly, 
a parasite, and a cringing slave. 

This is the curse of tyranny. It wars with the soul, and 
thus it wars with God. We read in theologians and poets 



64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of angels fighting against the Creator, of battles in heaven. 
But God's throne in heaven is unassailable. The only war 
against God is against his image, against the divine prin- 
ciple in the soul, and this is waged by tyranny in all its 
forms. We here see the chief curse of tyranny ; and this 
should teach us that civil freedom is a blessing chiefly as it 
reverences the human soul and ministers to its growth and 
power. 

Without this inward spiritual freedom outward liberty is 
of little worth. What boots it that I am crushed by no 
foreign yoke if, through ignorance and vice, through selfish- 
ness and fear, I want the command of my own mind ? The 
worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our 
own breast. The man who wants force of principle and 
purpose is a slave, however free the air he breathes. The 
mind, after all, is our only possession, or, in other words, 
we possess all things through its energy and enlargement ; 
and civil institutions are to be estimated by the free and 
pure minds to which they give birth. 

It will be seen from these remarks, that I consider the 
freedom or moral strength of the individual mind as the 
supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am 
aware that other views are often taken. It is said that 
government is intended for the public, for the community, 
not for the individual. The idea of a national interest 
prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought 
that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would main- 
tain that the individual is not made for the state so much 
as the state for the individual. A man is not created for 
political relations as his highest end, but for indefinite 
spiritual progress, and is placed in political relations as the 
means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more 
sacred, than the state, and must never be sacrificed to it. 
The human soul is to outlive all earthly institutions. The 
distinction of nations is to pass away. Thrones which have 
stood for ages are to meet the doom pronounced upon all 
man's works, But the individual mind survives, and the 



WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING. 55 

obscurest subject, if true to God, Avill rise to a power never 
wielded by earthly potentates. 

A human being is a member of the community, not as a 
limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of 
a machine, intended only to contribute to some general, 
joint result. He was created, not to be merged in the 
whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on 
the sea-shore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is 
an ultimate being, made for his own perfection as the high- 
est end, made to maintain an individual existence, and to 
serve others only as far as consists with his OAvn virtue and 
progress. 

Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this 
importance of the individual, to depress him in his own 
eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more 
important than the invisible soul, and of an outward author- 
ity more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret 
conscience. Rulers have called the private man the prop- 
erty of the state, meaning generally by the state them- 
selves, and thus the many have been immolated to the 
few, and have even believed that this was their highest 
destination. These views cannot be too earnestly with- 
stood. Nothing seems to me so needful as to give to the 
mind the consciousness, which governments have done so 
much to suppress, of its own separate worth. Let the indi- 
vidual feel that, through his immortality, he may concen- 
trate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. 
Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not to part 
with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he 
should find a sphere for his various powers, and a prepara- 
tion for immortal glory. To me, the progress of society 
consists in nothing more than in bringing out the indi- 
vidual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and 
in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind. 

In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of 
social institutions, I may be thought to discourage public 
efforts and the sacrifice of private interests to the state. 



56 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Far from it. No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings 
so effectually, so fervently, as lie who is not their slave, — as 
he who, casting off every other yoke, subjects himself to the 
law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disin- 
terested and generous spirit as man's glory and likeness to 
his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-subsistence, is the 
surest foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man 
so multiplies his bonds with the community as he who 
watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is 
a beautiful harmony between the good of the state and the 
moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it n^t 
so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an 
individual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing 
his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the 
good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should 
joyfully surrender to the state. But his soul he must never 
stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, 
he should not recoil ; but for no good of others ought he 
to part with self-control or violate the inward law. We 
speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public 
weal. Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most properly 
himself, the principle of piety and virtue ? Do we not feel 
that, however great may be the good which through his 
sufferings accrues to the state, a greater and purer glory 
redounds to himself, and that the most precious fruit of his 
disinterested services is the strength of resolution and philan- 
thropy which is accumulated in his own soul ? 



JOHN PIERPONT. 57 



3of)n ^irrpont. 

[b. Litchfield, Connecticut, April G, 1785. d. August 26, 1866.] 
MY CHILD. 

I CAN not make him dead ! 

His fair sunshiny head 
Is ever bounding round my study chair ; 

Yet, when my eyes, now dim 

With tears, I turn to him, 
The vision vanishes — he is not there ! 

I walk my parlor floor, 

And, through the open door, 
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; 

I'm stepping tow'rd the hall 

To give the boy a call ; 
And then bethink me that — he is not there ! 

I thread the crowded street ; 

A satchel' d lad I meet. 
With the same beaming eyes and color'd hair : 

And, as he's running by. 

Follow him with my eye, 
Scarcely believing that — he is not there ! 

I know his face is hid 

Under the coffin-lid ; 
Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; 

My hand that marble felt ; 

O'er it in prayer I knelt ; 
Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there ! 

I can not make him dead ! 
When passing by the bed. 
So long watched over with parental care. 



58 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

My spirit and my eye 
Seek him inquiringly, 
Before the thought comes that — he is not there ! 

When, at the cool gray break 

Of day, from sleep I Avake, 
With my first breathing of the morning air 

My soul goes up, with joy, 

To Him who gave my boy ; 
Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there ! 

When at the day's calm close. 

Before we seek repose, 
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, 

Whate'er I may be saying, 

I am in spirit praying 
For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there ! 

Not there ! — Where, then, is he ? 

The form I used to see 
Was but the raiment that he used to wear. 

The grave, that now doth j)ress 

Upon that cast-off dress, 
Is but his wardrobe lock'd ; — he is not there ! 

He lives ! — In all the past 

He lives ; nor, to the last. 
Of seeing him again will I despair ; 

In dreams I see him now ; 

And on his angel brow, 
I see it written — " Thou shalt see me there ! " 

Yes, we all live to God ! 

Father ! Thy chastening rod 
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear. 

That, in the spirit land. 

Meeting at Thy right hand, 
'Twill be our heaven to find that — he is there ! 



HENRY CLAY. 59 



Incurs Clau, 

[b. Hanover County, Virginia, April 12, 1777. d. June 29, 1852.] 
A PLEA FOR COMPROMISE. 

The responsibility of this great measure passes from the 
hands of the committee, and from my hands. They know, 

and I know, that it is an aAvful and tremendous „ i • 

' Speech m 

responsibility. I hope that you will meet it with the Senate, 
a just conception and a true apj)reciation of its July 22, 
magnitude, and the magnitude of the consequences 
that may ensue from your decision one way or the other. 
The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents, are 
concord and increased discord; a servile civil Avar, origi- 
nating in its causes on the lower Kio Grande, and termi- 
nating possibly in its consequences on the upper Eio Grande 
in the Santa Fe country, or the restoration of harmony and 
fraternal kindness. I believe, from the bottom of my soul, 
that the measure is the reunion of this Union. I believe it 
is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from 
the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured 
peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities 
of this distracted land. I believe that it will be attended 
with all these beneficent effects. And now let us discard 
all resentment, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal 
desires, all love of place, all hankerings after the gilded 
crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget 
popular fears, from Avhatever quarter they may spring. 
Let us go to the limpid fountain of unadulterated patriot- 
ism, and, performing a solemn lustration, return divested 
of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think 
alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our 
glorious Union — that Union without which we shall be 



60 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

torn into hostile fragments, and sooner or later become the 
victims of military despotism, or foreign domination. 

Mr. President, what is an individual man? An atom, 
almost invisible without a magnifying glass — a mere speck 
upon the surface of the immense universe ; not a second 
in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and 
never-ending eternity ; a drop of water in the great deep, 
which evaporates and is borne off by the winds ; a grain of 
sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it 
sprung. ShaH a being so small, so petty, so fleeting, so 
evanescent, oppose itself to the onward march of a great 
nation, which is to subsist for ages and ages to come; 
oppose itself to that long line of posterity, which, issuing 
from our loins, will endure during the existence of the 
world? Forbid it, God. Let us look to our country and 
our cause, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disin- 
terested patriots, and save our country from all impending 
dangers. What if, in the march of this nation to greatness 
and power, Ave should be buried beneath the wheels that 
propel it onward ! What are we — what is any man — 
worth who is not ready and willing to sacrifice himself for 
the benefit of his country when it is necessary ? . . . 

If this Union shall become separated, new unions, new 
confederacies will arise. And with respect to this, if there 
be any — I hope there is no one in the Senate — before 
whose imagination is flitting the idea of a great Southern 
Confederacy to take possession of the Balize and the mouth 
of the Mississippi, I say in my place, never ! never ! never ! 
will we who occupy the broad waters of the Mississippi and 
its upper tributaries consent that any foreign flag shall float 
at the Balize or upon the turrets of the Crescent City — 
never ! never ! I call upon all the South. Sir, we have 
had hard words, bitter words, bitter thoughts, unpleasant 
feelings toward each other in the progress of this great 
measure. Let us forget them. Let us sacrifice these feel- 
ings. Let us go to the altar of our country and swear, as 
the oath was taken of old, that we will stand by her ; that 



HENRY CLAY. 61 

we will support her ; that we will uphold her Constitution; 
that we will preserve her Union ; and that we will pass 
this great, comprehensive, and healing system of measures, 
Avhich will hush all the jarring elements, and bring peace 
and tranquillity to our homes. 



62 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3o|}n Caltibjrll (fTalfjoun, 

[b. Abbeville, South Carolina, Marcb IS, 1782. d. March 31, 1850.] 
STATE SOVEREIGNTY. 

Is this a Federal Union ? a union of States, as distinct 
from that of individuals ? Is the sovereignty in the several 

States, or in the American people in the aggre- 
Speech on gr^^^g 9 rp]^g very language which we are compelled 
tion ^^ ^^'^® when speaking of our political institutions, 

affords proof conclusive as to its real character. 
The terms union, federal, united, all imply a combination 
of sovereignties, a confederation of States. They never 
apply to an association of individuals. Who ever heard 
of the United State of New York, of Massachusetts, or 
of Virginia? Who ever heard the term federal or union 
applied to the aggregation of individuals into one commu- 
nity? No^' is the other point less clear — that the sover- 
eignty is in the several States, and that our system is a 
union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitu- 
tional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty between 
the States severally and the United States. In spite of all 
that has been said, I maintain that sovereignty is in its 
nature indivisible. It is the supreme power in a State, and 
we might just as well speak of half a square, or half of a 
triangle, as of half a sovereignty. It is a gross error to 
confound the exercise of sovereign powers with the surren- 
der of them. A sovereign may delegate his powers to be 
exercised by as many agents as he may think proper, under 
such conditions and with such limitations as he may im- 
pose ; but to surrender any portion of his sovereignty to 
another is to annihilate the whole. The Senator from Dela- 
ware (Mr. Clayton) calls this metaphysical reasoning, which 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 63 

he says he cannot comprehend. If by metaphysics he means 
that scholastic refinement which makes distinctions without 
difference, no one can hold it in more utter contempt than 
I do ; but if, on the contrary, he means the power of analy- 
sis and combination — that power which reduces the most 
complex idea into its elements, which traces causes to their 
first principle, and, by the power of generalization and com- 
bination, unites the whole in one harmonious system — 
then, so far from deserving contempt, it is the highest 
attribute of the human mind. It is the power which raises 
man above the brute — which distinguishes his faculties 
from mere sagacity, which he holds in common with iiafe- 
rior animals. It is this power which has raised the astron- 
omer from being a mere gazer at the stars to the high 
intellectual eminence of a Newton or a Laplace, and astron- 
omy itself from a mere observation of insulated facts into 
that noble science which displays to our admiration the 
system of the universe. 

And shall this high power of the mind, which has effected 
such wonders when directed to the laws which control the 
material world, be forever prohibited, under a senseless cry 
of metaphysics, from being applied to the high purposes of 
political science and legislation? I hold them to be subject 
to laws as fixed as matter itself, and to be as fit a subject for 
the application of the highest intellectual power. Denun- 
ciation may, indeed, fall upon the philosophical inquirer 
into these first principles, as it did upon Galileo and Bacon, 
when they first unfolded the great discoveries which have 
immortalized their names ; but the time will come when 
truth will prevail in spite of prejudice and denunciation, 
and when politics and legislation will be considered as much 
a science as astronomy and chemistry. 



64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



©anicl SEciJStcr. 

[b. Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. d. October 24, 1852.] 
PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 

If anything be found in the national Constitution, either 
by original provision or subsequent interpretation, which 

ought not to be in it, the people know how to get 
ep y to ^.-^1 ^£ -^^ j£ ^^^^ construction, unacceptable to 

them, be established so as to become practically 
a part of the Constitution, they will amend it at their own 
sovereign pleasure. But while the people choose to main- 
tain it as it is, while they are satisfied with it and refuse to 
change it, who has given, or who can give, to the legisla- 
tures a right to alter it, either by interference, construction, 
or otherwise ? Gentlemen do not seem to recollect that the 
people have any power to do anything for themselves. 
They imagine there is no safety for them, any longer than 
they are under the close guardianship of the State legisla- 
tures. Sir, the people have not trusted their safety in 
regard to the General Constitution, to these hands. They 
have required other security, and taken other bonds. They 
have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of 
the instrument, and to such construction as the Govern- 
ment themselves, in doubtful cases, should put on their 
powers, under their oaths of office, and subject to their 
responsibility to them, just as the people of a State trust 
to their own governments with a similar power. Secondly, 
they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent 
elections, and in their own power to remove their own 
servants and agents whenever they see cause. Thirdly, 
they have reposed trust in the judicial power, which, in 
order that it might be trustworthy, they have made as 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 65 

respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as was 
practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of 
necessity, or high expediency, on their known and admitted 
power to alter or amend the Constitution, peaceably and 
quietly, whenever experience shall poiiiit out defects or im- 
perfections. And, finally, the people of the United States 
have at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, author- 
ized any State legislature to construe or interpret their high 
instrument of government ; much less to interfere, by their 
own poAver, to arrest its course and operation. 

If, sir, the people in these respects had done otherwise 
than they have done, their Constitution could neither have 
been preserved, nor would it have been worth preserving. 
And if its plain provisions shall now be disregarded, and 
these new doctrines interpolated in it, it will become as 
feeble and helpless a being as its enemies, whether early or 
more recent, could possibly desire. It will exist in every 
State but as a poor dependent on State permission. It must 
borrow leave to be ; and will be, no longer than State pleas- 
ure, or State discretion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, and 
to prolong its poor existence. 

But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. 
The people have preserved this, their own chosen Constitu- 
tion, for forty years, and have seen their happiness, prosper- 
ity, and renown grow with its growth, and strengthen with 
its strength. They are now, generally, strongly attached 
to it. Overthrown by direct assault, it cannot be ; evaded, 
undermined, nullified, it will not be, if we, and those who 
shall succeed us here, as agents and representatives of the 
people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the 
two great branches of our public trust, faithfully to pre- 
serve and wisely to administer it. 

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my 
dissent to the doctrines Avhich have been advanced and 
maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and 
the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate 
with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the 



66 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a 
subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been will- 
ing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. 
I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, with- 
out expressing once more my deep conviction, that since 
it respects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of 
most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. 
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and 
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union 
we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and 
dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly 
indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. 
That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues 
in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the 
necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and 
ruined credit. 

Under its benign influences, these great interests immedi- 
ately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with new- 
ness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with 
fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; and although 
our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our 
population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun 
its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious 
fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. 

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, 
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. 
I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty 
when the. bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the 
precipice of disunion, to see whether, Avith my short sight, 
I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I 
regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Govern- 
ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, 
not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable 
might be the condition of the people, when it should be 
broken up and destroyed. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 67 

While the Union lasts wq have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. 
Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant 
that in my day at least, that curtain may not rise ! God 
grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies 
behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the 
last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on 
the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious 
Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a 
land rent Avith civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in 
fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance 
rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now 
known and honored throughout the earth, still full high 
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star 
obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrog- 
atory as " What is all this worth ? " nor those other words 
of delusion and folly, " Liberty first and Union afterward " ; 
but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, 
blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, 
that other sentiment, dear to every trvie American heart, 
"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" 



68 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

lairfjartr ^tnx^ SEiltie. 

[b. Dublin, Ireland, September 24, 1789. d. September 10, 1847.] 

STANZAS. 

My life is like the summer rose 

That opens to the morning sky, 
But ere the shades of evening close, 

Is scatter'd on the ground — to die ! 
Yet on the rose's humble bed 
The sweetest dews of night are shed, 
As if she wept the waste to see — 
But none shall weep a tear for me ! 

My life is like the autumn leaf 

That trembles in the moon's pale ray. 
Its hold is frail — its date is brief, 

Eestless — and soon to pass away ! 
Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade. 
The parent tree will mourn its shade, 
The winds bewail the leafless tree, 
But none shall breathe a sigh for me ! 

My life is like the prints, which feet 

Have left on Tampa's desert strand ; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat. 

All trace will vanish from the sand ; 
Yet, as if grieving to efface 
All vestige of the human race. 
On that lone shore loud moans the sea, 
But none, alas ! shall mourn for me ! 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 69 



SHasfjington Kiting. 

[b. New York, New York, April 3, 1783. d. November 28, 1859.] 
RIP VAN WINKLE'S RETURN. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his 
rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of 
women and children at his heels, soon attracted 
the attention of the tavern politicians. They The 
crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot -^^^^^ 
with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to 
him, and drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which 
side he voted." Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another 
short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and 
rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "whether he was a 
Federal or Democrat ? " Rip was equally at a loss to com- 
prehend the question, when a knowing, self-important old 
gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through 
the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his 
elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van 
Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, 
his keen eye and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his 
very soul, demanded in an austere tone, " what brought him 
to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at 
his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the vil- 
lage ? " " Alas ! gentlemen," said Rip, somewhat dismayed, 
" I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal 
subject of the king, God bless him ! " 

Here a general shout burst from the by-standers — "A 
tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with 
him ! " It was with great difficulty that the self-important 
man in the cocked hat restored order ; and, having assumed 
a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown 
culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking ? 



70 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 
but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, 
who used to keep about the tavern. 

'' Well, who are they ? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, " Where's 
Nicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a while, when an old man replied, 
in a thin, piping voice, " Nicholas Vedder ! why, he is dead 
and gone these eighteen years. There was a wooden tomb- 
stone in the church-yard, that used to tell all about him, 
but that's rotten and gone too." 

'' Where's Brom Dutcher ? " 

"Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the 
war ; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony 
Point — others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot 
of Antony's Nose. I don't know — he never came back 
again." 

" Where's Van Brummel, the schoolmaster ? " 

'' He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general, 
and is now in Congress." 

Eip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in 
his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the 
world. 

Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enor- 
mous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not 
understand: war — Congress — Stony Point; — he had no 
courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in de- 
spair, " Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ? " 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three, '' Oh, 
to be sure ! That's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against 
the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, 
as he went up the mountain : apparently as lazy, and cer- 
tainly as ragged. The poor fellow Avas now completely 
confounded. He doubted his OAvn identity, and whether he 
was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilder- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 71 

ment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, 
and what was his name ? 

" God knows," exclaimed he, at his wits' end ; " I'm not 
myself — I'm somebody else — that's me yonder — no — 
that's somebody else got into my shoes — I was myself last 
night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed 
my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I 
can't tell what's my name, or who I am ! " 

The by-standers now began to look at each other, nod, 
Avink significantly, and tap their fingers against their fore- 
heads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, 
and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very 
suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked 
hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical mo- 
ment a fresh, comely woman passed through the throng to 
get a peep at the gray-headed man. 

She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at 
his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Eip," cried she, "hush, 
you little fool ; the old man won't hurt you." The name 
of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all 
awakened a train of recollections in his mind. 

" What is your name, my good woman ? " asked he, 

"Judith Gardenier." 

" And your father's name ? " 

"Ah, poor man, Eip \'d\\ Winkle was his name, but it's 
twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, 
and never has been heard of since — his dog came home with- 
out him ; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away 
by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little 
girl.;' 

Rip had but one more question to ask; but he put it 
with a faltering voice : 

" Where's your mother ? " 

" Oh, she too had died but a short time since ; she broke 
a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England peddler." 

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. 
The honest man could contain himself no longer. He 



72 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

caught his daughter and her chikl in his arms. "I am 
your father!" cried he — "Young Rip Van Winkle once — 
old Rip Van Winkle now ! — Does nobody know poor Rip 
Van Winkle ? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from 
among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering 
under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, " Sure enough ! 
it is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself ! Welcome home 
again, old neighbor — Why, where have you been these 
twenty long years ? " 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years 
had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared 
when they heard it: some were seen to wink at each other, 
and put their tongues in their cheeks : and the self-impor- 
tant man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, 
had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his 
mouth, and shook his head — upon which there was a 
general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old 
Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the 
road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, 
who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. 
Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and 
well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of 
the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and cor- 
roborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He 
assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from 
his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains 
had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was 
affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discov- 
erer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there 
every twenty years, with his crew of the Half -moon ; being 
permitted in this way to revisit the scene of his enterprise, 
and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city 
called by his name. That his father had once seen them in 
their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of 
the mountain ; and that he himself had heard, one summer 



WASHINGTON IRVING. ■ 73 

afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of 
thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and 
returned to the more important concerns of the election. 
Rip's daughter took him home to live with her ; she had a 
snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for 
a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins 
that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and 
heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the 
tree, he was employed to work on the farm ; but evinced an 
hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his 
business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
found many of his former cronies, though all rather the 
worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred making 
friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon 
grew into great favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that 
happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took 
his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was 
reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a 
chronicle of the old times " before the war." It was some 
time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or 
could be made to comprehend the strange events that had 
taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a 
revolutionary war — that the country had thrown off the 
yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a subject 
of his Majesty George the Third, he Avas now a free citizen 
of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician ; the 
changes of states and empires made but little impression 
on him; but there was one species of despotism under which 
he had long groaned, and that was — petticoat government. 
Happily that was at an end ; he had got his head out of the 
yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever 
he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van 
Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he 
shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his 



74 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

eyes ; which might pass either for an expression of resigna- 
tion to his fate, or joy at his deliverance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived 
at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary 
on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, 
owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled 
down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, 
woman, or child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. 
Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and 
insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this 
was one point on which he always remained flighty. The 
old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it 
full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunder- 
storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they 
say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of 
nine-pins ; and it is a common wish of all henpecked hus- 
bands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their 
hands, that they might have a quieting draught ou.t of Rip 
Van Winkle's flagon. 



ROBERT TAYLOR CONRAD. 75 



Hobrrt Eaglor ConratJ, 

[b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 10, ISIO. d. June 27, 1858.] 

ON A BLIND BOY. 

' Tis vain ! They heed thee not ! Thy flute's meek tone 

Thrills thine own breast alone. As streams that glide 

Over the desert rock, whose sterile frown 

Melts not beneath the soft and crystal tide, 

So passes thy sweet strain o'er hearts of stone. 

Thine outstretched hands, thy lips' unutterecl moan, 

Thine orbs upturning to the darkened sky, 

(Darkened, alas ! poor boy, to thee alone ! ) 

Are all unheeded here. They pass thee by : — 

Away ! Those tears unmarked fall from thy sightless eye ! 

Ay, get thee gone, benighted one ! Away ! 

This is no place for thee. The buzzing mart 

Of selfish trade, the glad and garish day. 

Are not for strains like thine. Thei'e is no heart 

To echo to their soft appeal : — depart ! 

Go seek the noiseless glen, where shadows reign, 

Spreading a kindred gloom : and there, apart 

From the cold world, breathe out thy pensive strain ; 

Better to trees and rocks, than heartless man, complain ! 

I pity thee ! thy life a live-long night ; 

Ko friend to greet thee, and no voice to cheer ; 

No hand to guide thy darkling steps aright. 

Or from thy pale face wipe th' unbidden tear. 

I pity thee ! thus dark and lone and drear ! 

Yet haply it is well. The world from thee 

Hath veiled its wintry frown, its withering sneer, 

Th' oppressor's triumph, and the mocker's glee ; 

Why, then, rejoice, poor boy — rejoice thou canst not see ! 



76 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Samrs jFrnimorr Cooper* 

[b. Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789. d. September 14, 1851.] 
AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE IROQUOIS. 

[Cora and Alice Munro, under the escort of Major Duncan Heyward, are 
on their way from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, accompanied by 
Hawk-eye, the scout; Chingachook, a Delaware chieftain; Uncas, his son, 
" the last of the Mohicans " ; and David Gamut, the singing-master. Warned 
by certain signs of the proximity of the enemy, the party take refuge in a 
cave where they are disturbed by a " strong horrid cry."] 

" 'TwouLD be neglecting a warning that is given for our 
good, to lie hid any longer," said Hawk-eye, " when such 
The Last sounds are raised in the forest ! These gentle 
of the Mo- ones may keep close, but the Mohicans and I will 
hicans, Avatch upon the rock, where I suppose a major of 
the 60th would wish to keep us company." 

" Is then our danger so pressing ? " asked Cora. 

" He who makes strange sounds, and gives them out for 
man's information, alone knows our danger. I should think 
myself wicked, unto rebellion against his will, was I to 
burrow with such warnings in the air ! Even the weak soul 
who passes his days in singing, is stirred by the cry, and, 
as he says, is 'ready to go forth to the battle.' If 'twere 
only a battle, it would be a thing understood by us all, and 
easily managed ; but I have heard that when such shrieks 
are atween heaven and 'arth, it betokens another sort of 
warfare ! " 

"If all our reasons for fear, my friend, are confined to 
such as proceed from supernatural causes, we have but 
little occasion to be alarmed," continued the undisturbed 
Cora ; " are you certain that our enemies have not invented 
some new and ingenious method to strike us with terror that 
their conquest may become more easy ? " 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 77 

"Lady," returned the scout, solemnly, "I have listened 
to all the sounds of the woods for thirty years, as a man 
will listen whose life and death depend on the quickness of 
his ears. There is no whine of the panther ; no whistle 
of the cat-bird ; nor any invention of the devilish Mingoes, 
that can cheat me ! I have heard the forest moan like 
mortal men in their affliction ; often, and again, have I lis- 
tened to the wind playing its music in the branches of 
the girdled trees ; and I have heard the lightning cracking 
in the air, like the snapping of blazing brush, as it spitted 
forth sparks and forked flames ; but never have I thought 
that I heard more than the pleasure of Him who sported 
with the things of his hand. But neither the Mohicans, 
nor I, who am a white man without a cross, can explain the 
cry just heard. We, therefore, believe it is a sign given for 
our good." 

" It is extraordinary ! " said Hey ward, taking his pistols 
from the place where he had laid them on entering ; " be it 
a sign of peace or a signal of war, it must be looked to. 
Lead the way, my friend ; I follow." 

On issuing from their place of confinement, the whole 
party instantly experienced a grateful renovation of spir- 
its, by exchanging the pent air of the hiding-place for the 
cool and invigorating atmosphere, which played around the 
whirlpools and pitches of the cataract. A heavy evening 
breeze swept along the surface of the river, and seemed to 
drive the roar of the falls into the recesses of their own 
caverns, whence it issued heavily and constant, like thun- 
der rumbling beyond the distant hills. The moon had risen, 
and its light was already glancing here and there on the 
waters above them; but the extremity of the rock where 
they stood still lay in shadow. With the exception of the 
sounds produced by the rushing waters, and an occasional 
breathing of the air, as it murmured past them in fitful 
currents, the scene was still as night and solitude could 
make it. In vain were the eyes of each individual bent 
along the opposite shore, in quest of some signs of life that 



78 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

might explain the nature of the interruption they had 
heard. Tlieir anxious and eager looks were baffled by the 
deceptive light, or rested only on naked rocks, and straight 
and immovable trees. 

'• Here is nothing to be seen but the gloom and quiet of a 
lovely evening," whispered Duncan ; " how much should we 
prize such a scene, and all this breathing solitude, at any 
other moment, Cora ! Fancy yourselves in security, and 
what now, perhaps, increases your terror, may be made 
conducive to enjoyment " — 

" Listen ! " interrupted Alice. 

The caution was unnecessary. Once more the same sound 
arose, as if from the bed of the river, and having broken 
out of the narrow bounds of the cliffs, was heard undulating 
through the forest, in distant and dying cadences. 

" Can any here give a name to such a cry ? " demanded 
Hawk-eye, when the last echo was lost in the Avoods ; 
" if so, let him speak ; for myself, I judge it not to belong 
to 'arth ! " 

"Here, then, is one who can undeceive you," said Dun- 
can ; " I know the sound full well, for often have I heard it 
on the field of battle, and in situations which are frequent 
in a soldier's life. 'Tis the horrid shriek that a horse will 
give in his agony ; oftener drawn from him in pain, though 
sometimes in terror. My charger is either a prey to the 
beasts of the forest, or he sees his danger without the power 
to avoid it. The sound might deceive me in the cavern, but 
in the open air, I know it too well to be wrong." 

The scout and his companions listened to this simple 
explanation with the interest of men who imbibe new ideas, 
at the same time that they get rid of old ones which had 
proved disagreeable inmates. 

The two latter uttered their usual and expressive excla- 
mation, " hugh ! " as the truth first glanced upon their 
minds ; while the former, after a short musing pause, took 
upon himself to reply. 

" I cannot deny your words," he said, '• for I am little 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 79 

skilled in horses, though born where they abound. The 
wolves mu.st be hovering above their heads on the bank, 
and the timorsome creatures are calling on man for help, in 
the best manner they are able. Uncas " — he spoke in 
Delaware — " Uncas, drop down in the canoe, and whirl 
a brand among the pack ; or fear may do what the wolves 
can't get at to jjerform, and leave us without horses in the 
morning, when v/e shall have so much need to journey 
swiftly! " 

The young native had already descended to the water, to 
comply, when a long howl was raised on the edge of the 
river, and was borne swiftly off into the depths of the forest, 
as though the beasts, of their own accord, were abandoning 
their prey in sudden terror. Uncas, with instinctive quick- 
ness, receded, and the three foresters held another of their 
low, earnest conferences. 

" We have been like hunters who have lost the points of 
the heavens, and from whom the sun has been hid for days," 
said Hawk-eye, turning away from his companions ; " now 
Ave begin again to know the signs of our course, and the 
paths are cleared from briers ! Seat yourselves in the shade 
Avhich the moon throws from yonder beech — 'tis thicker 
than that of the pines — and let us wait for that which the 
Lord may choose to send next. Let all your conversation 
be in whispers ; though it would be better, and perhaps, in 
the end, wiser, if each one held discourse with his own 
thoughts for a time." 

The manner of the scout was seriously impressive, though 
no longer distinguished by any signs of unmanly apprehen- 
sion. It was evident that his momentary weakness had 
vanished with the explanation of a mystery which his own 
experience had not served to fathom ; and though he now 
felt all the realities of their actual condition, that he was 
prepared to meet them with the energy of his hardy nature. 

This feeling seemed also common to the natives, who 
placed themselves in positions which commanded a full 
view of both shores, while their own persons were effectu- 



80 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ally concealed from observation. In such circumstances 
common prudence dictated that Heyward and his compan- 
ions should imitate a caution that proceeded from so intelli- 
gent a source. The young man drew a pile of the sassafras 
from the cave, and placing it in the chasm which separated 
the two caverns, it was occupied by the sisters ; who were 
thus protected by the rocks from any missiles, while their 
anxiety was relieved by the assurance that no danger could 
approach without a warning. 

Heyward himself was posted at hand, so near that he 
might communicate with his companions without raising 
his voice to a dangerous elevation ; while David, in imita- 
tion of the woodsmen, bestowed his person in such a man- 
ner among the fissures of the rocks, that his ungainly limbs 
were no longer offensive to the eye. In this manner hours 
passed by, without further interruption. The moon reached 
the zenith, and shed its mild light perpendicularly on the 
lovely sight of the sisters slumbering peacefully in each 
other's arms. 

Duncan cast the wide shawl of Cora before a spectacle 
he so much loved to contemplate, and then suffered his own 
head to seek a pillow on the rock. David began to utter 
sounds that would have shocked his delicate organs in more 
wakeful moments ; in short, all but Hawk-eye and the 
Mohicans lost every idea of consciousness, in uncontrollable 
drowsiness. But the watchfulness of these vigilant protec- 
tors neither tired nor slumbered. Immovable as that rock 
of which each appeared to form a part, they lay, with their 
eyes roving, without intermission, along the dark margin of 
trees that bounded the adjacent shores of the narrow stream. 
Not a sound escaped them; the most subtle examination 
could not have told they breathed. It was evident that 
this excess of caution proceeded from an experience that 
no subtlety on the part of their enemies could deceive. 
It was, however, continued without any apparent conse- 
quences, until the moon had set, and a pale streak above 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 81 

the tree-tops, at the bend of the river a little below, an- 
nounced the approach of day. 

Then, for the first time, Hawk-eye was seen to stir. He 
crawled along the rock, and shook Duncan from his heavy 
slumbers. "Now is the time to journey," he whispered; 
" Awake the gentle ones, and be ready to get into the canoe 
when I bring it to the landing-place." 

" Have you had a quiet night ? " said Heyward ; " for 
myself, I believe sleep has got the better of my vigilance." 

" All is yet still as midnight. Be silent, but be quick." 

By this time Duncan was thoroughly awake, and he 
immediately lifted the shawl from the sleeping females. 
The motion caused Cora to raise her hand as if to repulse 
him, while Alice murmured, in her soft, gentle voice, " No, 
no, dear father, we were not deserted ; Duncan was with 
us ! " 

"Yes, sweet innocence," whispered the youth; "Duncan 
is here, and while life continues or danger remains, he will 
never quit thee. Cora ! Alice ! awake ! The hour has come 
to move ! " 

A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the 
form of the other standing upright before him, in be- 
wildered horror, Avas the unexpected answer he received. 
While the words were still on the lips of Heyward, there 
had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries as served to 
drive the swift currents of his own blood back from its 
bounding course into the fountains of his heart. It seemed, 
for near a minute, as if the demons of hell had possessed 
themselves of the air about them, and were venting their 
savage humors in barbarous sounds. The cries came from 
no particular direction, though it was evident they filled 
the woods, and as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the 
caverns of the falls, the rocks, the bed of the river, and the 
u^jper air. David raised his tall person in the midst of 
the infernal din, with a hand on either ear, exclaiming — 
" Whence comes this discord ? Has hell broke loose, that 
man should utter sounds like these ? " 



82 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles, 
from the opposite banks of the stream, followed this incau- 
tious exposure of his person, and left the unfortunate sing- 
ing-master senseless on that rock where he had been so long 
slumbering. The Mohicans boldly sent back the intimidat- 
ing yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of savage 
triumph at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then 
quick and close between them, but either party was too 
well skilled to leave even a limb exposed to hostile aim. 

Duncan listened with intense anxiety for the strokes of 
the paddle, believing that flight was now their only refuge. 
The river glanced by with its ordinary velocity, but the 
canoe was nowhere to be seen on its dark waters. He had 
just fancied they were cruelly deserted by the scout, as a 
stream of flame issued from the rock beneath him, and 
a fierce yell, blended with a shriek of agony, announced that 
the messenger of death, sent from the fatal weapon of 
Havfk-eye, had found a victim. At this slight repulse the 
assailants instantly withdrew, and gradually the place be- 
came as still as before the sudden tumult. 

Duncan seized the favorable moment to spring to the 
body of Gamut, which he bore within the shelter of the 
narrow chasm that protected the sisters. In another minute 
the whole party Avas collected in this spot of comparative 
safety. 

"The poor fellow has saved his scalp," said Hawk-eye, 
coolly passing his hand over the head of David ; " but he is 
a proof that a man may be born with too long a tongue ! 
'Twas downright madness to show six feet of flesh and 
blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages. I only 
wonder he has escaped Avith life." 

" Is he not dead ? " demanded Cora, in a voice whose 
husky tones shoAved how powerfully natural horror strug- 
gled Avith her assumed firmness. ''Can we do aught to 
assist the Avretched man ? " 

" No, no ! the life is in his heart yet, and after he has 
slept aAvhile he Avill come to himself, and be a Aviser man 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 83 

for it, till the hour of his real time shall come," returned 
Hawk-eye, casting another oblique glance at the insensible 
body, while he filled his charges with admirable nicety. 
'' Carry him in, Uncas, and lay him on the sassafras. The 
longer his nap lasts the better it will be for him, as I doubt 
Avhether he can find a proper cover for such a shape on 
these rocks ; and singing won't do any good with the 
Iroquois." 

" You believe, then, the attack will be renewed ? " asked 
Heyward. 

" Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with 
a mouthful ! They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, 
when they meet a loss, and fail in the surprise, to fall back ; 
but we shall have them on again, with new expedients 
to circumvent us, and master our scalps. Our main hope," 
he continued, raising his rugged countenance, across which 
a shade of anxiety just then passed like a darkening cloud, 
'' will be to keep the rock until Munro can send a party to 
our help ! God send it may be soon, and under a leader 
that knows the Indian customs ! " 

"You hear our probable fortunes, Cora," said Duncan; 
"and you know we have everything to hope from the 
anxiety and experience of your father. Come, then, with 
Alice, into this cavern, where you, at least, will be safe 
from the murderous rifles of our enemies, and where you 
may bestow a care suited to your gentle natures on our 
unfortunate comrade." 

The sisters followed him into the outer cave, where 
David was beginning, by his sighs, to give symptoms of 
returning consciousness ; and then commending the wounded 
man to their attention, he immediately prepared to leave 
them. 

" Duncan ! " said the tremulous voice of Cora, when he 
had reached the mouth of the cavern. He turned, and 
beheld the speaker, whose color had changed to a deadly 
paleness, and whose lip quivered, gazing after him, with an 
expression of interest which immediately recalled him to 



84 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

her side. " Kemember, Duncan, how necessary your safety 
is to our own — how you bear a father's sacred trust — how 
much depends on your discretion and care — in short," she 
added, while the tell-tale blood stole over her features, crim- 
soning her very temples, "how very deservedly dear you 
are to all of the name of Munro." 

"If anything could add to my own base love of life," 
said Heyward, suffering his unconscious eyes to wander to 
the youthful form of the silent Alice, " it would be so kind 
an assurance. As major of the GOth, our honest host will 
tell you I must take my share of the fray ; but our task 
will be easy ; it is merely to keep these blood-hounds at 
bay for a few hours." 

Without waiting for a reply, he tore himself from the 
presence of the sisters, and joined the scout and his com- 
panions, who still lay within the protection of the little 
chasm between the two caves. 

"I tell you, Uncas," said the former, as Heyward joined 
them, "you are wasteful of your powder, and the kick of 
the rifle disconcerts your aim ! Little powder, light lead, 
and a long arm, seldom fail of bringing the death screech 
from a Mingo ! At least, such has been my experience 
with the creature. Come, friends ; let us to our covers, for 
no man can tell when or where a Maqua will strike his 
blow." 

The Indians silently repaired to their appointed stations, 
which were fissures in the rocks, whence they could com- 
mand the approaches to the foot of the falls. In the centre 
of the little island, a few short and stunted pines had found 
root, forming a thicket, into which Hawk-eye darted with 
the swiftness of a deer, followed by the active Duncan. 
Here they secured themselves, as well as circumstances 
would permit, among the shrubs and fragments of stone 
that were scattered about the place. Above them was a 
bare, rounded rock, on each side of which the water played 
its gambols, and plunged into the abysses beneath, in the 
manner already described. As the day had now dawned, 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 85 

the opposite shores no longer presented a confused outline, 
but they were able to look into the woods, and distinguish 
objects beneath the canopy of gloomy pines. 

A long and anxious watch succeeded, but without any 
further evidences of a renewed attack ; and Duncan began 
to hope that their fire had proved more fatal than was sup- 
posed, and that their enemies had been effectually repulsed. 
When he ventured to utter this impression to his companion, 
it was met by Hawk-eye with an incredulous shake of the 
head. 

" You know not the nature of a Maqua, if you think he 
is so easily beaten back without a scalp ! " he answered. 
" If there was one of the imps yelling this morning, there 
were forty ! and they know our number and quality too 
well to give up the chase so soon. Hist ! look into the 
water above, just where it breaks over the rocks. I am no 
mortal, if the risky devils haven't swam down upon the 
very pitch, and, as bad luck would have it, they have hit 
the head of the island. Hist ! man, keep close ! or the hair 
will be off your crown in the turning of a knife ! " 

Heyward lifted his head from the cover, and beheld Avhat 
he justly considered a prodigy of rashness and skill. The 
river had worn away the edge of the soft rock in such a 
manner as to render its first pitch less abrupt and perpen- 
dicular than is usual at waterfalls. With no other guide 
than the ripple of the stream where it met the head of the 
island, a party of their insatiable foes had ventured into 
the current, and swam down upon this point, knowing the 
ready access it would give, if successful, to their intended 
victims. As Hawk-eye ceased speaking, four human heads 
could be seen peering above a few logs of drift wood that 
had lodged on these naked rocks, and which had probably 
suggested the idea of the practicability of the hazardous 
undertaking. 

At the next moment, a fifth form was seen floating over 
the green edge of the fall, a little from the line of the island. 
The savage struggled powerfully to gain the point of safety. 



8b AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and, favored by the glancing water, he was already stretch- 
ing forth an arm to meet the grasp of his companions, when 
he shot away again with the whirling current, appeared to 
rise into the air, with uplifted arms, and starting eyeballs, 
and fell Avith a sudden plunge into that deep and yawning 
abyss over which he hovered. A single, wild, despairing 
shriek rose from the cavern, and all was hushed again, as 
the grave. 

The first generous impulse of Duncan was to rush to the 
rescue of the hapless wretch ; but he felt himself bound to 
the spot by the iron grasp of the immovable scout. 

'' Would ye bring certain death upon us, by telling the 
Mingoes where we lie ? " demanded Hawk-eye, sternly ; 
"'tis a charge of powder saved, — and ammunition is as 
precious now as breath to a worried deer ! Freshen the 
priming of your pistols — the mist of the falls is apt to 
dampen the brimstone — and stand firm for a close struggle, 
while I fire on their rush." 

He placed a finger in his mouth, and drew a long, shrill 
whistle, which was answered from the rocks that were 
guarded by the Mohicans. Duncan caught glimpses of 
heads above the scattered drift wood, as this signal rose on 
the air, but they disappeared again as suddenly as they had 
glanced upon his sight. A low, rustling sound next drew 
his attention behind him, and turning his head, he beheld 
Uncas within a few feet, creeping to his side. Hawk-eye 
spoke to him in Delaware, when the young chief took his 
position with singular caution and undisturbed coolness. 
To Hey ward, this was a moment of feverish and impatient 
suspense ; though the scout saw fit to select it as a fit 
occasion to read a lecture to his more j^outhful associates 
on the art of using fire-arms with discretion. 

"Of all we'pons," he commenced, "the long-barrelled, 
true-grooved, soft-metalled rifle is the most dangerous in 
skilful hands, though it wants a strong arm, a quick eye, 
and great judgment in charging, to put forth all its beau- 
ties. The gunsmiths can have but little insight into their 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 87 

trade, when they make their fowling-pieces and short horse- 
men's — " 

He was interrupted by the low but expressive '' hugh " 
of Uncas. 

" I see them, boy, I see them ! " continued Hawk-eye ; 
" they are gathering for the rush, or they would keep their 
dingy backs below the logs. Well, let them," he added, 
examining his flint ; " the leading man certainly comes on 
to his death, though it should be Montcalm himself ! " 

At that moment the woods were filled with another burst 
of cries, and at the signal four savages sprang from the 
cover of the drift wood. Heyward felt a burning desire to 
rush forward to meet them, so intense was the delirious 
anxiety of the moment ; but he was restrained by the de- 
liberate examples of the scout and Uncas. When their 
foes, who leaped over the black rocks that divided them, 
with long bounds, uttering the wildest yells, were within 
a few rods, the rifle of Hawk-eye slowly rose among the 
shrubs, and poured out its fatal contents. The foremost 
Indian bounded like a stricken deer, and fell headlong 
among the clefts of the island. 

"Now, Uncas," cried the scout, drawing his long knife, 
while his quick eyes began to flash with ardor, '' take the 
last of the screeching imps ; of the other two we are 
sartain ! " 

He was obeyed ; and but two enemies remained to be 
overcome. Heyward had given one of his pistols to Hawk- 
eye, and together they rushed down a little declivity towards 
their foes ; they discharged their weapons at the same 
instant, and equally without success. 

" I know'd it ! and I said it ! " muttered the scout, whirl- 
ing the despised little implement over the falls with bitter 
disdain. " Come on, ye bloody-minded hell-hounds ! ye 
meet a man without a cross ! " 

The words were barely uttered, when he encountered a 
savage of gigantic stature, and of the fiercest mien. At 
the same moment, Duncan found himself ensasred with the 



88 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ottier, in a similar contest of hand to hand. With ready 
skill, Hawk-eye and his antagonist each grasped that up- 
lifted arm of the other which held the dangerous knife. 
For near a minute they stood looking one another in the 
eye, and gradually exerting the power of their muscles for 
the mastery. At length the toughened sinews of the white 
man prevailed over the less practised limbs of the native. 
The arm of the latter slowly gave way before the increasing 
force of the scout who, suddenly wresting his armed hand 
from tiie grasp of his foe, drove the sharp weapon through 
his naked bosom to the heart. In the meantime, Heyward 
had been pressed in a more deadly struggle. His slight 
sword was snapped in the first encounter. As he was desti- 
tute of any other means of defence, his safety now depended 
entirely on bodily strength and resolution. 

Though deficient in neither of these qualities, he had met 
an enemy every way his equal. Happily he soon succeeded 
in disarming his adversary, whose knife fell on the rock at 
their feet ; and from this moment it became a fierce struggle 
who should cast the other over the dizzy height into a 
neighboring cavern of the falls. Every successive struggle 
brought them nearer to the verge, where Duncan perceived 
the final and conquering effort must be made. Each of the 
combatants thrcAv all his energies into that effort, and the 
result was, that both tottered on the brink of the precipice. 
Heyward felt the grasp of the other at his throat, and saw 
the grim smile the savage gave, under the revengeful hope 
that he hurried his enemy to a fate similar to his own, as 
he felt his body slowly yielding to a resistless power, and 
the young man experienced the passing agony of such a 
moment in all its horrors. At that instant of extreme dan- 
ger, a dark hand and glancing knife appeared before him ; 
the Indian released his hold, as the blood flowed freely 
from around the severed tendons of his wrist; and while 
Duncan was drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, 
his charmed eyes were still riveted on the fierce and disap- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 89 

pointed countenance of his foe, who fell sullenly and disap- 
pointed down the irrecoverable precipice. 

"To cover! to cover!" cried Hawk-eye, who just then 
had despatched his enemy; "to cover, for your lives ! the 
work is but half ended ! " 

The young Mohican gave a shout of triumph, and, fol- 
lowed by Duncan, he glided up the acclivity they had 
descended to the combat, and sought the friendly shelter of 
the rocks and shrubs. 



90 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3 antes ffiatcs pcrctfaaL 

[b. Kensington, Connecticut, September 15, 1795. d. May 2, 1856.] 

THE CORAL GROVE. 

Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove ; 

Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, 

That never are wet with falling dew. 

But in bright and changeful beauty shine, 

Far down in the green and glassy brine. 

The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, 

And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow ; 

From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow ; 

The water is calm and still below. 

For the winds and waves are absent there. 

And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 

In the motionless fields of upper air : 

There, with its waving blade of green, 

The sea-flag streams through the silent water. 

And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 

To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter ; 

There, with a light and easy motion. 

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea. 

And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 

Are bending like corn on the upland lea ; 

And life, in rare and beautiful forms, 

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone. 

And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms 

Has made the top of the wave his own. 

And when the ship from his fury flies, 

Where the myriad voices of ocean roar. 



JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 91 

When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies, 
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore, — 
Then^ far below, in the peaceful sea. 
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove. 
Where the waters murmur tranquilly, 
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



William Htcfeltng Prescott. 

[b. Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. d. January 28, 1859.] 
THE BATTLE OF TLASCALA. 

As a battle was now inevitable, Cortez resolved to march 
out and meet the enemy in the field. This would have a 
show of confiden(ie, that might serve the double 
Conquest purpose of intimidating the Tlascalans, and inspir- 
iting his own men, whose enthusiasm might lose 
somewhat of its heat, if compelled to await the assault of 
their antagonists, inactive in their own intrenchments. 
The sun rose bright on the following morning, the 5th of 
September, 1519, an eventful day in the history of the 
Spanish Conquest. The general reviewed his army, and 
gave them, preparatory to marching, a few words of encour- 
agement and advice. 

The infantry he instructed to rely on the point rather 
than the edge of their swords, and to endeavor to thrust 
their opponents through the body. The horsemen were to 
charge at half speed, with their lances aimed at the eyes 
of the Indians. The artillery, the arquebusiers, and cross- 
bow-men, were to support one another, some loading while 
others discharged their pieces, that there should be an 
unintermitted firing kept up through the action. Above 
all, they were to maintain their ranks close and unbroken, 
as on this depended their preservation. 

They had not advanced a quarter of a league, when they 
came in sight of the Tlascalan army. Its dense array 
stretched far and wide over a vast plain or meadow ground, 
about six miles square. Its appearance justified the report 
which had been given of its numbers. 

Nothing could be more picturesque than the aspect of 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 93 

these Indian battalions with the naked bodies of the com- 
mon sohliers gaudily painted, the fantastic helmets of the 
chiefs glittering with gold and precious stones, and the 
glowing panoplies of feather-work which decorated their 
persons. Innumerable spears and darts tipped with points 
of transparent itztli, or fiery copper, sparkled bright in the 
morning sun, like the phosphoric gleams playing on the 
surface of a troubled sea, while the rear of the mighty host 
was dark with the shadows of banners, on which were 
emblazoned the armorial bearings of the great Tlascalan 
and Otomir chieftains. Among these, the white heron on 
the rock, the cognizance of the house of Xicotencatl, was 
conspicuous, and, still more, the golden eagle with out- 
spread wings, in the fashion of a Eoman signum, richly 
ornamented with emeralds and silver-work, the great stand- 
ard of the republic of Tlascala. 

The common file wore no covering except a girdle around 
the loins. Their bodies were painted with the appropriate 
colors of the chieftain whose banner they followed. The 
feather-mail of the higher class of warriors exhibited, also, 
a similar selection of colors for the like object, in the same 
manner as the color of the tartan indicates the peculiar 
clan of the Highlander. The caciques and principal war- 
riors were clothed in a-quilted cotton tunic, two inches 
thick, which, fitting close to the body, protected also the 
thighs and the shoulders. Over this the wealthier Indians 
wore cuirasses of thin gold plate, or silver. Their legs were 
defended by leathern boots or sandals, trimmed with gold. 
But the most brilliant part of their costume was a rich 
mantle of the plumage of feather-work, embroidered with 
curious art, and furnishing some resemblance to the gor- 
geous surcoat worn by the European knight, over his armor 
in the Middle Ages. This graceful and picturesque dress 
was surmounted by a fantastic head-piece made of wood or 
leather, representing the head of some wild animal, and 
frequently displaying a formidable array of teeth. With 
this covering the warrior's head was enveloped, producing a 



94 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

most grotesque and hideous effect. From the crown floated 
a splendid panache of the richly variegated plumage of the 
tropics, indicating, by its form and colors, the rank and 
family of the wearer. To complete their defensive armor, 
they carried shields or targets, made sometimes of wood 
covered with leather, but more usually of a light frame of 
reeds quilted with cotton, which were preferred, as rougher 
and less liable to fracture than the former. They had other 
bucklers, in which the cotton was covered with an elastic 
substance, enabling them to be shut up in a more compact 
form, like a fan or umbrella. These shields were decorated 
with showy ornaments, according to the taste or wealth of 
the wearer, and fringed with a beautiful pendant of feather- 
work. 

Their weapons were slings, bows and arrows, javelins, 
and darts. They were accomplished archers, and would 
discharge two or even three arrows at a time. But they 
most excelled in throwing the javelin. One species of this, 
with a thong attached to it, which remained in the slinger's 
hand, that he might recall the weapon, was especially 
dreaded by the Spaniards. These various weapons were 
pointed with bone, or the mineral itztli (obsidian), the hard, 
vitreous substance, already noticed, as capable of taking an 
edge like a razor, though easily blunted. Their spears and 
arrows were also frequently headed with copper. Instead 
of a sword, they bore a two-handed staff, about three feet 
and a half long, in which, at regular distances, were inserted 
transversely, sharp blades of itztli, — a formidable weapon, 
which, an eye-witness assures us, he had seen fell a horse 
at a blow. 

Such was the costume of the Tlascalan warrior, and 
indeed of that great family of nations generally, who occu- 
pied the plateau of Anahuac. Some parts of it, as the 
targets and the cotton-mail, or escaupil, as it was called in 
Castilian, were so excellent, that they were subsequently 
adopted by the Spaniards, as equally effectual in the way of 
protection, and superior, on the score of lightness and con- 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 95 

venience, to tlieir own. They were of sufficient strength to 
turn an arrow, or the stroke of a javelin, although izupotent 
as a defence against fire-arms. But what armor is not ? 
Yet it is probably no exaggeration to say, that, in con- 
venience, gracefulness, and strength the arms of the Indian 
warrior were not very inferior to those of the polished 
nations of antiquity. As soon as the Castilians came in 
sight, the Tlascalans set up their yell of defiance, rising 
high above the wild barbaric minstrelsy of shell, atabal, and 
trumpet, with which they proclaimed their triumphant anti- 
cipation of victory over the paltry forces of the invaders. 

When the latter had come within bowshot, the Indians 
hurled a tempest of missiles, that darkened the sun for a 
moment as with a passing cloud, strewing the earth around 
with heaps of stones and arrows. Slowly and steadily the 
little band of Spaniards held on its way amidst this arrowy 
shower, until it had reached what appeared the proper dis- 
tance for delivering its fire with full effect. 

Cortez then halted, and, hastily forming his troops, opened 
a general well-directed fire along the whole line. Every 
shot bore its errand of death ; and the ranks of the Indians 
were mowed down faster than their comrades in the rear 
could carry off their bodies, according to custom, from the 
field. The balls in their passage through the crowded files, 
bearing splinters of the broken harness, and mangled limbs 
of the warriors, scattered havoc and desolation in their 
path. The mob of barbarians stood petrified with dismay, 
till, at length, galled to desperation by their intolerable 
sufferings, they poured forth simultaneously their hideous 
war-shriek, and rushed impetuously on the Christians. 

On the}' came like an avalanche, a mountain torrent, 
shaking the solid earth, and sweeping away every obstacle 
in its path. The little army of Spaniards opposed a bold 
front to the overwhelming mass. But no strength could 
withstand it. They faltered, gave way, were borne along 
before it, and their ranks were broken and thrown into 
disorder. It was in vain the general called on them to close 



96 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

again, and rally. His voice was drowned by the din of 
fight, and the fierce cries of the assailants. For a moment, 
it seemed that all was lost. The tide of battle had turned 
against them, and the fate of the Christians was sealed. 

But every man had that within his bosom which spoke 
louder than the voice of the general. Despair gave un- 
natural energy to his arm. The naked body of the Indian 
afforded no resistance to the sharp Toledo steel ; and with 
their good swords, the Spanish infantry at length succeeded 
in staying the human torrent. The heavy guns from a 
distance thundered on the flank of the assailants, which, 
shaken by the iron tempest, was thrown into disorder. 
Their very numbers increased the confusion, as they were 
precipitated on the masses in front. The horse at the 
same moment, charging gallantly under Cortez, followed up. 
the advantage, and at length compelled the tumultuous 
throng to fall back with greater precipitation and disorder 
than that with which they had advanced. 

More than once in the course of the action a similar 
assault was attempted by the Tlascalans, but each time 
with less spirit, and greater loss. They were too deficient 
in military science to profit by their vast superiority in 
numbers. They were distributed into companies, it is true, 
each serving under its own chieftain and banner. But they 
were not arranged by rank and file, and moved in a confused 
mass, promiscuously heaped together. They knew not how 
to concentrate numbers on a given point, or even how to 
sustain an assault, by employing successive detachments 
to support and relieve one another. A very small part only 
of their array could be brought into contact with an enemy 
inferior to them in amount of forces. The remainder of 
the army, inactive and worse than useless, in the rear, served 
only to press tumultuously on the advance, and embarrass 
its movements by mere weight of numbers, while, on the 
least alarm, they were seized with a panic and threw the 
whole body into inextricable confusion. It was, in short, 
the combat of the ancient Greeks and Persians over asrain. 



WILLIAM IIICKLING PRESCOTT. 97 

Still the great numerical superiority of the Indians might 
have enabled them, at a severe cost of their own lives, 
indeed, to wear out, in time, the constancy of the Spaniards, 
disabled by wounds and incessant fatigue. But, fortunately 
for the latter, dissensions arose among their enemies. A 
Tlascalan chieftain, commanding one of the great divisions, 
had taken umbrage at the haughty demeanor of Xicotencatl, 
who had charged him with misconduct or cowardice in the 
late action. The injured cacique challenged his rival to 
single combat. This did not take place. But, burning 
with resentment, he chose the present occasion to indulge 
it, by drawing off his forces, amounting to ten thousand 
men, from the field. He also persuaded another of the 
commanders to follow his example. 

Thus reduced to about half his original strength, and 
that greatly crippled by the losses of the day, Xicotencatl 
could no longer maintain his ground against the Spaniards. 
After disputing the field with admirable courage for four 
hours, he retreated and resigned it to the enemy. The 
Spaniards were too much jaded, and too many were dis- 
abled by wounds, to allow them to pursue ; and Cort^z, 
satisfied with the decisive victory he had gained, returned 
in triumph to his position on the hill of Tzompach. 

The number of killed in his own ranks had been very 
small, notwithstanding the severe loss inflicted on the 
enemy. These few he was careful to bury where they 
could not be discovered, anxious to conceal not only the 
amount of the slain, but the fact that the whites were mor- 
tal. But very many of the men were wounded, and all the 
horses. The trouble of the Spaniards was much enhanced 
by the want of many articles important to them in their 
present exigency. They had neither oil nor salt, which, as 
before noticed, was not to be obtained in Tlascala. Their 
clothing, accommodated to a softer climate, was ill adapted 
to the rude air of the mountains ; and bows and arrows, 
as Bernal "Diaz sarcastically remarks, formed an indifferent 
protection against the inclemency of the weather. 



98 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Still, they had much to cheer them in the events of the 
day ; and they might draw from them a reasonable ground 
for confidence in their own resources, such as no other ex- 
perience could have supplied. Not that the results could 
authorize anything like contempt for their Indian foe. 
Singly and Avith the same weapons, he miglit have stood 
his ground against the Spaniard. But the success of the 
day established the superiority of science and discipline 
over mere physical courage and numbers. It was fighting 
over again, as we have said, the old battle of the ' European 
and the Asiatic. But the handful of Greeks who routed 
the hosts of Xerxes and Darius, it must be remembered, 
had not so obvious an advantage on tlie score of weapons 
as was enjoyed by the Spaniards in tliese wars. The use 
of fire-arms gave an ascendency which cannot easily be 
estimated ; one so great, that a contest between nations 
equally civilized, which should be similar in all other re- 
spects to that between the Spaniards and the Tlascalans, 
would probably be attended with a similar issue. To all 
this must be added the effect produced by the cavalry. The 
nations of Anahuac had no large domesticated animals, 
and were unacquainted with any beast of burden. Their 
imaginations were bewildered when they beheld the strange 
apparition of the horse and his rider moving in unison and 
obedient to one impulse, as if possessed of a common nature ; 
and when they saw the terrible animal, with his " neck 
clothed in thunder," bearing down their squadrons and 
trampling them in the dust, no wonder they should have 
regarded him with the mysterious terror felt for a super- 
natural being. A very little reflection on the manifold 
grounds of superiority, both moral and physical, possessed 
by the Spaniards in this contest, will surely explain the 
issue, without any disparagement to the courage or capacity 
of their opponents. 

Cort^z, thinking the occasion favorable, followed up the 
important blow he had struck by a new mission to the cap- 



WILLIAM IIICKI^NG rRESCOTT. 99 

ital, bearing a message of similar import with that recently 
sent to the camp. But the senate was not yet sufficiently 
humbled. The late defeat caused, indeed, general conster- 
nation. Maxixcatzin, one of the four great lords who pre- 
sided over the republic, reiterated with greater force the 
arguments before urged by him for embracing the proffered 
alliance of the strangers. The armies of the state had been 
beaten too often to allow any reasonable hope of successful 
resistance ; and he enlarged on the generosity shown by the 
politic Conqueror to his prisoners, — so unusual in Ana- 
huac, — as an additional motive for an alliance with men 
who knew how to be friends as well as foes. 

But in these views he was overruled by the war party, 
whose animosity was sharpened, rather than subdued, by 
the late discomfiture. Their hostile feelings were further 
exasperated by the younger Xicotencatl, who burned for 
an opportunity to retrieve his disgrace, and to wipe away 
the stain which had fallen for the first time on the arms of 
the republic. 

In their perplexity, they called in the assistance of the 
priests, whose authority was frequently invoked in the 
deliberations of the American chiefs. The latter inquired, 
with some simplicity, of these interpreters of fate, whether 
the strangers were supernatural beings, or men of flesh and 
blood like themselves. The priests, after some consulta- 
tion, are said to have made the strange answer, that the 
Spaniards, though not gods, were children of the Sun ; 
that they derived their strength from that luminary, and, 
when his beams were withdrawn, their powers would also 
fail. They recommended a night attack, therefore, as one 
which afforded the best chance of success. This apparently 
childish response may have had in it more of cunning than 
credulity. It was not improbably suggested by Xicotencatl 
himself, or by the caciques in his interest, to reconcile the 
people to a measure which was contrary to military usages, 
— indeed, it may be said, to the public law of Anahuac. 



100 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Whether the fruit of artifice or superstition, it prevailed ; 
and the TlascaLan general was empowered, at the head of a 
detachment of ten thousand warriors, to try the effect of an 
assault by night on the Christian camp. 

The affair was conducted with such secrecy, that it did 
not reach the ears of the Spaniards. But their general was 
not one who allowed himself, sleeping or waking, to be sur- 
prised on his post. Fortunately, the night appointed was 
illumed by the full beams of an autumnal moon ; and one 
of the videttes perceived by its light, at a considerable dis- 
tance, a large body of Indians moving towards the Christian 
lines. He was not slow in giving the alarm to the garrison. 

The Spaniards slept, as has been said, with their arms by 
their side ; while their horses, picketed near them, stood 
ready saddled, with the bridle hanging at the bow. In five 
minutes, the whole camp was under arms; when they 
beheld the dusky columns of the Indians cautiously advanc- 
ing over the plain, their heads just peering above the tall 
maize with which the land was partially covered, Cortdz 
determined not to abide the assault in his intrenchments, 
but to sally out and pounce on the enemy when he had 
reached the bottom of the hill. 

Slowly and stealthily the Indians advanced, while the 
Christian camp, hushed in profound silence, seemed to them 
buried in slumber. But no sooner had they reached the 
slope of the rising ground, than they were astounded by the 
deep battle cry of the Spaniards, followed by the instanta- 
neous apparition of the whole army, as they sallied forth 
from the works, and poured down the sides of the hill. 
Brandishing aloft their weapons, they seemed to the troubled 
fancies of the Tlascalans, like so many spectres or demons 
hurrying to and fro in mid-air, while the uncertain light 
magnified their numbers, and expanded the horse and his 
rider into gigantic and unearthly dimensions. 

Scarcely waiting the shock of their enemy, the panic- 
struck barbarians let off a feeble volley of arrows, and, offer- 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 101 

ing no other resistance, fled rapidly and tumultuously across 
the plain. The horse easily overtook the fugitives, riding 
them down and cutting them to pieces without mercy, until 
Cort^z, weary with slaughter, called off his men, leaving 
the field loaded with the bloody trophies of victory. 



102 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



[b. Guilford, Connecticut, July 8, 1790. d. November 19, 1867.] 
ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying. 

From eyes unused to weep. 
And long, where thou art lying. 

Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts, whose truth was proven, 

Like thine, are laid in earth. 
There should a wreath be woven, 

To tell the world their worth. 

And I, who woke each morrow 

To clasp thy hand in mine. 
Who shared thy joy and sorrow. 

Whose weal and woe were thine. 

It should be mine to braid it 

Around thy faded brow, 
But I've in vain essayed it. 

And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts nor words are free. 

The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee. 



EDWARD EVERETT. 103 



lEtitaarti ISberett. 

[b. Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 11, 1794. d. January 15, 1865.] 

THE NEED OF PATRIOTISM. 

We live at an eventful period. Mighty changes in human 
affairs are of daily occurrence at home and abroad. In 
Europe, the strongest governments are shaken; Banker Hill 
the pillars of tradition, rooted in the depths of June 17, 
antiquity, are heaved from their basis ; and that 
fearful war of opinion, so long foretold, is raging, with 
various fortune, from Lisbon to Archangel. Have you not 
noticed that in the midst of the perplexity and dismay, of 
the visions and the hopes of the crisis, the thoughts of men 
have been turned more and more to what has passed and 
what is passing in America ? They are looking anxiously 
to us for lessons of practical freedom, for the solution of 
that great mystery of state, that the strongest government 
is that which, with the least array of force, is deepest seated 
in the welfare and affections of the people. The friends of 
republican government in France, taunted with the impos- 
sibility of making such a government efficient and respecta- 
ble, point to our example as the sufficient answer. Austria, 
breaking down beneath the burden of her warring races, 
offers them too late a federal constitution modelled on our 
own ; and even in England, from which the original ele- 
ments of our free institutions were derived, scarce a debate 
arises in parliament, or an important question, without ref- 
erence to the experience of the United States. The constitu- 
tional worship of mankind is reversed ; they turn their faces 
to the West. Happy for them, happy for us, should they 
behold nought in this country to disappoint the hopes of 
progress, to discourage the friends of freedom, to strengthen 



104 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the arm of the oppressor; and may God grant that those 
who look to us for guidance and encouragement, may be 
able to transplant the germs of constitutional liberty to the 
ancient gardens of the earth, that the clouds which now 
darken the horizon of Europe may clear away, and the long- 
deferred hopes of the friends of freedom be fulfilled ! 

But chiefly let us trust that the principles of our fathers 
may more and more prevail throughout our beloved country. 
We have erected a noble monu^ment to their memory, but 
we shall not have performed all our duty unless we our- 
selves catch some portion of their spirit. 

Oh, that the contemjilation of their bright example and 
pure fame might elevate our minds above the selfish pas- 
sions, the fierce contentions, and the dark forebodings of 
the day ! We need the spirit of '75 to guide us safely 
amidst the dizzy activities of the times. 

While our own numbers are increasing in an unexampled 
ratio, Europe is pouring in upon us her hundreds of thou- 
sands annually, and new regions are added to our domain, 
which we are obliged to count by degrees of latitude and 
longitude. In the mean time the most wonderful discov- 
eries of art and the most mysterious powers of nature, com- 
bine to give an almost fearful increase to the intensity of 
our existence. Machines of unexampled complication and 
ingenuity have been applied to the whole range of human 
industry. We rush across the land and sea by steam ; we 
correspond by magnetism ; we paint by the solar ray ; we 
count the beats of the electric clock at the distance of a 
thousand miles ; we do all but annihilate time and distance ; 
and amidst all the new agencies of communication and 
action, the omnipotent press, the great engine of modern 
progress, not superseded or impaired, but gathering new 
power from all the arts, is daily clothing itself with louder 
thunders. 

While we contemplate with admiration, — almost with 
awe, — the mighty influences which surround us, and Avhich 
demand our cooperation and our guidance, let our hearts 



EDWARD EVERETT. 105 

overflow with gratitude to the patriots who have handed 
down to us this great inheritance. Let us strive to furnish 
ourselves, from the storehouse of their example, with the 
principles and virtues which will strengthen us for the per- 
formance of an honored part on this illustrious stage. Let 
pure patriotism add its bond to the bars of iron which are 
binding the continent together ; and as intelligence shoots 
with the electric spark from ocean to ocean, let public spirit 
and love of country catch from heart to heart. 



106 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



lEtigar ^llan Poe. 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, January 19, 1809. d. October 7, 1849.] 
ANNABEL LEE. 

It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 

Than to love and be loved by me. 

I was a child and she was a child, 

In this kingdom by the sea : 
But we loved with a love which was more than love 

I and my Annabel Lee ; 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago, 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her highborn kinsmen came, 

And bore her away from me. 
To shut her up in a sepulchre 

In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven. 

Went envying her and me — 
Yes ! — that was the reason (as all men know, 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night. 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 107 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we — 

Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 



THE HAUNTED PALACE. 

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Eadiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion — 

It stood there ! 
Never seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair ! 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden. 

On its roof did float and flow, 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago,) 
And every gentle air that dallied, 

In that sweet day. 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 



108 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Wanderers in that liappy valley, 

Through two luminous windows, saw 
Spirits moving musically. 

To a lute's well-tun^d law. 
Round about a throne where, sitting 

(Porphyrogene ! ) 
In state his glory well-befitting. 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby gloAving 

Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing. 
In voices of surpassing beauty, 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 

Assailed the monarch's high estate. 
(Ah, let us mourn ! — for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him desolate ! ) 
And round about his home the glory 

That blushed and bloomed, 
Is but a dim-remembered story 

Of the old time entombed. 

And travellers, now, within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms, that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody. 
While, like a ghastly, rapid river. 

Through the pale door 
A hideous throng rush out forever 

And laugh — but smile no more. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE, 109 



THE CITY IN THE SEA, 

Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne 

In a strange city lying alone 

Far down within the dim West, 

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best 

Have gone to their eternal rest. 

There shrines and palaces and towers 

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not !) 

Resemble nothing that is ours. 

Around, by lifting winds forgot, 

Eesignedly beneath the sky 

The melancholy waters lie. 

No rays from the holy heaven come down 
On the long night-time of that town ; 
But light from out the lurid sea 
Streams up the turrets silently — 
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free — 
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls — 
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls — 
Up shadowy, long-forgotten bowers 
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers — 
Up many and many a marvellous shrine 
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine 
The viol, the violet, and the vine. 
Resignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters lie. 
So blend the turrets and shadows there 
That all seem pendulous in air, 
While from a proud tower in the town 
Death looks gigantically down. 
There open fanes and gaping graves 
Yawn level with the luminous waves 5 
But not the riches there that lie 
In each idol's diamond eye — 



110 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Not the gaily -jewelled dead 

Tempt the waters from their bed ; 

For no ripples curl, alas ! 

Along that wilderness of glass — 

No swellings tell that winds may be 

Upon some far-off happier sea — 

No heavings hint that winds have been 

On seas less hideously serene. 

But lo, a stir is in the air ! 

The wave — there is a movement there ! 

As if the towers had thrust aside, 

In slightly sinking, the dull tide — 

As if their tops had feebly given 

A void within the filmy Heaven. 

The waves have now a redder glow — 

The hours are breathing faint and low — 

And when, amid no earthly moans, 

Down, down that town shall settle hence. 

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones. 

Shall do it reverence. 



TO . 

I heed not that my earthly lot 

Hath little of Earth in it — 
That years of love have been forgot 

In the hatred of a minute : — 
I mourn not that the desolate 

Are happier, sweet, than I, 
But that you sorrow for my fate, 

Who am a passer by. 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE. Ill 



TORTURE. 



I now lay upon my back, and at full length, on a species 
of low framework of wood. To this I was securely bound 
by a long strap resembling a surcingle. It passed 
in many convolutions about my limbs and body, The Pit 
leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm p , , 
to such extent that I could by dint of much exer- 
tion supply myself with food from an earthen dish which 
lay by my side on the floor. I saw to my horror that the 
pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror, for I was 
consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared 
to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate, for the 
food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned. 

Looking upward I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. 
It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed 
much as the side walls. In one of its panels a very singular 
figure riveted my whole attention. It was the painted 
figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that in 
lieu of a scythe he held what at a casual glance I supposed 
to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum, such as we 
see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in 
the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard 
it more attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it 
(for its position was immediately over my own), I fancied 
that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the fancy 
was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. 
I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear but more 
in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull 
movement, I turned my eyes upon the other objects in the 
cell. 

A slight noise attracted my notice, and looking to the 
floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had 
issued from the well which lay just within view to my 
right. Even then while I gazed, they came up in troops, 
hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the 



112 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

meat. From this it required much effort and attention to 
scare them away. 

It might have been half-an-hour, perhaps even an hour 
(for I eoukl take but imperfect note of time), before I again 
cast my eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and 
amazed me. The sweep of the pendulum had increased in 
extent by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its 
velocity was much greater. But what mainly disturbed me 
was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now 
observed, with what horror it is needless to say, that its 
nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering 
steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns 
upward, and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a 
razor. Like a razor also it seemed massy and heavy, taper- 
ing from the edge into a solid and broad structure above. 
It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole 
hissed as it swung through the air. 

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by 
monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had 
become known to the inquisitorial agents — the pit, whose 
horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself, 
the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima 
Thule of all their punishments. The plunge into this pit 
I had avoided by the merest of accidents, and I knew that 
surprise or entrapment into torment formed an important 
portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths. 
Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to 
hurl me into the abyss, and thus (there being no alternative) 
a different and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder ! 
I half smiled in my agony as I thought of such application 
of such a term. 

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror 
more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing 
oscillations of the steel! Inch by inch — line by line — 
with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed 
ages — down and still down it came ! Days passed — it 
might have been that many days passed — ere it swept 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 113 

sn closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The 
odor of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I 
prayed — I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more 
speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to 
force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimi- 
tar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the 
glittering death as a child at some rare bauble. 

There was another interval of utter insensibility ; it was 
brief, for upon again lapsing into life there had been no 
perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have 
been long — for I knew there were demons who took note 
of my swoon, and who couM have arrested the vibration at 
pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very — oh ! inex- 
pressibly — sick and weak, as if through long inanition. 
Even amid the agonies of that period the human nature 
craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left 
arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of 
the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. 
As I put a portion of it within my lips there rushed to my 
mind a half-formed thought of joy — of hope. Yet what 
business had I with hope ? It was, as I say, a half-formed 
thought — man has many such, which are never completed. 
I felt that it was of joy — of hope ; but I felt also that it 
had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to per- 
fect — to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated 
all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile — an 
idiot. 

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my 
length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the 
region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe ; 
it would return and repeat its operations — again — and 
again. Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep (some 
thirty feet or more) and the hissing vigor of its descent, 
sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying 
of my robe would be all that for several minutes it would 
accomplish ; and at this thought I paused. I dared not go 
farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a perti- 



114 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

nacity of attention — as if, in so chvelling, I could arrest 
here the descent of the steel. 

I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent 
as it should pass across the garment — upon the peculiar 
thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces on 
the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my 
teeth were on edge. 

Down — steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleas- 
ure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. 
To the right — to the left — far and wide — with the shriek 
of a damned spirit ! to my heart with the stealthy pace of 
a tiger ! I alternately laughed and howled, as the one or 
the other idea grew predominant. 

Down — certainly, relentlessly down ! It vibrated within 
three inches of my bosom ! I struggled violently — furi- 
ously — to free my left arm. This was free only from the 
elbow to the hand. I could reach the latter from the plat- 
ter beside me to my mouth with great effort, but no farther. 
Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I 
would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. 
I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche ! 

Down — still unceasingly — still inevitably down ! I 
gasped and struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convul- 
sively at its every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or 
upward Avhirls with the eagerness of the most unmeaning 
despair; they closed themselves spasmodically at the de- 
scent, although death would have been a relief, O, how 
unspeakable ! Still I quivered in every nerve to think how 
slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that 
keen glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope tliat 
prompted the nerve to quiver — the frame to shrink. It 
was hope — the hope that triumphs on the rack — that 
whispers to the death-condemned even in the dungeons of 
the Inquisition. 

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the 
steel in actual contact with my robe, and with this observa- 
tion there suddenly came over my spirit all the keen col- 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 115 

lected calmness of despair. For the first time during many 
hours, or perhaps days, I thought. It now occurred to me 
that the bandage or surcingle which enveloped me was 
unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke 
of the razor-like crescent athwart any portion of the band 
would so detach it that it might be unwound from my 
person by means of my left hand. But how fearful in that 
case the proximity of the steel ! The result of the slightest 
struggle how deadly ! Was it likely, moreover, that the 
minions of the torturer had not foreseen and provided for 
this possibility ? Was it probable that the bandage crossed 
my bosom in the track of the pendulum ? Dreading to find 
my faint, and, as it seemed, my last hope frustrated, I so 
far elevated my head as to obtain a distinct view of my 
breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs and body close 
in all directions save in the path of the destroying crescent. 

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original 
position when there flashed upon ray mind what I cannot 
better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of 
deliverance to which I have previously alluded, and of 
which a moiety only floated indeterminately through my 
brain when I raised my food to my burning lips. The 
whole thought was now present — feeble, scarcely sane, 
scarcely definite, but still entire. I proceeded at once, with 
the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution. 

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low frame- 
work upon which I lay had been literally swarming with 
rats. They were wild, bold, ravenous, their red eyes glaring 
upon me as if they waited but for motionlessness on my 
part to make me their prey. "To what food," I thought, 
" have they been accustomed in the well ? " 

They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent 
them, all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. 
I had fallen into an habitual see-saw or wave of the hand 
about the platter ; and at length the unconscious uniformity 
of the movement deprived it of effect. In their voracity the 
vermin frequently fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers. 



116 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now 
remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I 
could reach it ; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay 
breathlessly still. 

At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified 
at the change — at the cessation of movement. They shrank 
alarmedly back ; many sought the well. But this was only 
for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their vora- 
city. Observing that I remained without motion, one or 
two of the boldest leaped upon the framework and smelt 
at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general 
rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. 
They clung to the wood, they overran it, and leaped in 
hundreds upon my person. The measured movement of 
the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its 
strokes, they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. 
They pressed, they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating 
heaps. They writhed upon my throat ; their cold lips 
sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pres- 
sure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled 
my bosom, and chilled with heavy clamminess my heart. 
Yet one minute and I felt that the struggle would be over. 
Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I knew 
that in more than one place it must be already severed. 
With more than human resolution I lay still. 

Nor had I erred in my calculations, nor had I endured in 
vain. I at length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung 
in ribands from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum 
already pressed upon my bosom. It had divided the serge 
of the robe. It had cut through the linen beneath. Twice 
again it swung and a sharp sense of pain shot through every 
nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave 
of my hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. 
With a steady movement, cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and 
slow, I slid from the embrace of the bandage and beyond 
the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was 
free. 



RICHARD HENRY DANA. 117 



i^icjarti i?ntr2 ©ana, 

[b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 15, 1787. d. February 2, 1879.] 
THE MOSS SUPPLICATETH FOR THE POET. 

Though I am humble, slight me not, 
But love me for the poet's sake ; 

Forget me not till he's forgot ; 

I care or slight with him would take. 

For oft he passed the blossoms by, 
And gazed on me with kindly look ; 

Left flaunting flowers and open sky, 
And woo'd me by the shady brook. 

And like the brook his voice was low : 
So soft, so sad the words he spoke, 

That with the stream they seemed to flow : 
They told me that his heart was broke ; — 

They said, the world he fain would shun. 
And seek the still and twilight wood, — 

His spirit, weary of the sun. 

In humblest things found chiefest good ; — 

That I was of a lowly frame. 

And far more constant than the flower, 

Which, vain, with many a boastful name. 
But fluttered out its idle hour ; 

That I was kind to old decay. 

And wrapt it softly round in green, 

On naked root and trunk of gray 

Spread out a garniture and screen : — 



118 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

They said that he was withering fast, 
Without a sheltering friend like me ; 

That on his manhood fell a blast, 
And left him bare, like yonder tree ; 

That spring would clothe his boughs no more, 
Nor ring his boughs Avith song of bird, — 

Sounds like the melancholy shore 

Alone were through his branches heard. 

Methought, as then he stood to trace 
The wither 'd stems, there stole a tear, 

That I could read in his sad face, — 
Brothers ! our sorrows make us near. 

And then he stretch'd him all along, 
And laid his head upon my breast, 

Listening the water's peaceful song. 
How glad was I to tend his rest ! 

Then happier grew his soothed soul. 

He turned and watched the sunlight play 
Upon my face, as in it stole. 

Whispering — " Above is brighter day ! '^ 

He praised my varied hues, — the green, 
The silver hoar, the golden brown ; 

Said, — Lovelier hues were never seen ; 
Then gently press'd my tender down. 

And where I sent up little shoots. 
He call'd them trees, in fond conceit : 

Like silly lovers in their suits 

We talk'd, his care awhile to cheat. 

I said, I'd deck me in the dews. 
Could I but chase aAvay his care, 



BICIIARD HENRY DANA. 

And clothe me in a thousand hues, 
To bring him joys that I might share. 

He answered, earth no blessing had 
To cure his lone and aching heart ; 

That I was one, when he was sad, 
Oft stole him from his pain, in part. 

But e'en from thee, he said, I go 

To meet the world, its care and strife, 

No more to watch this quiet flow. 
Or spend with thee a gentle life. 

And yet the brook is gliding on. 
And I, without a care, at rest ; 

While back to toiling life he's gone, 

Where finds his head no faithful breast. 

Deal gently with him. World ! I pray ; 

Ye cares ! like soften'd shadows come ; 
His spirit, well-nigh worn away. 

Asks with ye but awhile a home. 

0, may I live, and when he dies 

Be at his feet a humble sod ; 
0, may I lay me where he lies. 

To die when he awakes in God ! 



THE LITTLE BEACH BIRD. 

Thou little bird ! thou dweller by the sea 
Why takest thou its melancholy voice, 
And with that boding cry 
O'er the waves dost thou fly ? 
! rather, bird ! with me 

Through the fair land rejoice ! 



119 



120 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, 
As driven by the beating storm at sea; 
Thy cry is weak and scared, 
As if thy mates had shared 
The doom of us. They wail — 
What does it bring to me ? 

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, 
Restless and sad ; as if, in strange accord 
With the motion and the roar 
Of waves that drive to shore. 
One spirit did ye urge, — 
The Mystery — the Word. 

Of thousands thou both sepulchre and pall. 
Old Ocean, art ! A requiem o'er the dead 
From out thy gloomy cells 
A tale of mourning tells, — 
Tells of man's woe and fall, 
His sinless glory fled. 

Then turn thee, little bird ! and take thy flight 
Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring 
Thy spirit never more ! 
Come, quit with me the shore 
For gladness, and the light 
Where birds of summer sina: ! 



GEORGE TICKNOR. 121 



(George Eickttor. 

[b. Boston, MasBacliuaetts, August 1, 1791. d. January 26, 1871.] 

CERVANTES. 

Cervantes, in truth, came at last to love these creatures 
of his marvellous power, as if they were real, familiar per- 
sonages, and to speak of them and treat them History of 
with an earnestness and interest that tend much Spanish 
to the illusion of his readers. Both Don Quixote Literature, 
and Sancho are thus brought before us like such living reali- 
ties, that, at this moment, the figures of the crazed, gaunt, 
dignified knight and of his round, selfish, and most amusing 
esquire dwell bodied forth in the imaginations of more, 
among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than 
any other of the creations of human talent. The greatest 
of the great poets — Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton — 
have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed them- 
selves in more imposing relations with the noblest attributes 
of our nature ; but Cervantes — always writing under the 
unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively con- 
centrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the char- 
acter of his nation — has shown himself of kindred to all 
times and all lands ; to the humblest degrees of cultivation as 
well as to the highest ; and has thus, beyond all other writers, 
received in return a tribute of sympathy and admiration 
from the universal spirit of humanity. It is not easy to 
believe, that, when he had finished such a work, he was 
insensible to what he had done. Indeed, there are passages 
in the Don Quixote itself which prove a consciousness of 
his own genius, its aspirations, and its power. And yet 
there are, on the other hand, carelessnesses, blemishes, and 
contradictions scattered through it, which seem to show 



122 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

him to have been almost indifferent to contemporary suc- 
cess or posthumous fame. His plan, which he seems to 
have modified, more than once while engaged in the com- 
position of the work, is loose and disjointed ; his style, 
though full of the richest idiomatic beauties, abounds with 
inaccuracies ; and the facts and incidents that make up his 
fiction are full of anachronisms-. . . . 

The romance, however, which he threw so carelessly from 
him, and which I am persuaded he regarded rather as a bold 
effort to break up the absurd taste of his time for the fan- 
cies of chivalry than as anything of more serious import, 
has been established by an uninterrupted, and, it may be 
said, an unquestioned, success ever since, both as the oldest 
classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as one of the 
most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But though 
this may be enough to fill the measure of human fame and 
glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is entitled ; for, if we 
would do him the justice that would have been most wel- 
come to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves fully 
comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, we 
should, as we read it, bear in mind, that this delightful 
romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of 
feeling and a happy external condition, nor composed in his 
best years, when the spirits of its author were light and his 
hopes high ; but that — with all its unquenchable and irre- 
sistible humor, with its bright views of the world, and its 
cheerful trust in goodness and virtue — it was Avritten in 
his old age, at the conclusion of a life nearly every stej) of 
which had been marked with disappointed expectations, 
disheartening struggles, and sore calamities ; that he began 
it in a prison, and that it was finished when he felt the 
hand of death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If 
this be remembered as we read, we may feel, as we ought 
to feel, what admiration and reverence are due, not only to 
the living power of Don Quixote, but to the character and 
genius of Cervantes ; — if it be forgotten or underrated, Ave 
shall fail in regard to both. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 123 



gEilltam Cullen 33rsant> 

[b. Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794. d. June 12, 1878. 

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 

Thou blossom bright with autumn clew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed. 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and coms't alone, 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky. 
Blue — bkie — as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 

I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 
Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
May look to heaven as I depart. 



124 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



TO A WATER-FOWL. 

Whither, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky. 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide. 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean-side ? 

There is a Power Avhose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned. 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend. 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 125 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone. 

Will lead my steps aright. 



'OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS." 

Oh fairest of the rural maids ! 
Thy birth was in the forest shades ; 
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky. 
Were all that met thine infant eye. 

Thy sports, thy wanderings when a child, 
Were ever in the sylvan wild ; 
And all the beauty of the place 
Is in thy heart and on thy face. 

The twilight of the trees and rocks 
Is in the light shade of thy locks ; 
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves 
Its playful way among the leaves. 

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene 
And silent waters heaven is seen ; 
Their lashes are the herbs that look 
On their young figures in the brook. 

The forest depths, by foot unpressed. 
Are not more sinless than thy breast ; 
The holy peace that fills the air 
Of those calm solitudes, is there. 



126 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE. 

Come, let us plant the apple-tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made ; 
There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care. 

And press it o'er them tenderly, 
As, round the sleeping infant's feet. 
We softly fold the cradle-sheet ; 

So plant we the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Buds, which the breath of summer days 
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays ; 
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast. 
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest ; 

We plant, upon the sunny lea, 
A shadow for the noontide hour, 
A shelter from the summer shower, 

When we plant the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs 
To load the May-wind's restless wings. 
When, from the orchard-row, he pours 
Its fragrance through our open doors ; 

A world of blossoms for the bee. 
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room. 
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom. 

We plant with the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon, 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 127 

And drop when gentle airs come by, 
That fan the blue September sky, 

While children come, with cries of glee, 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass, 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 

And when, above this apple-tree, 
The winter stars are quivering bright, 
And winds go howling through the night. 
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth. 
Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth. 

And guests in prouder homes shall see. 
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine 
And golden orange of the line, 

The fruit of the apple-tree. 

The fruitage of this apple-tree 
Winds and our flag of stripe and star 
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar. 
Where men shall wonder at the view, 
And ask in what fair groves they grew ; 

And sojourners beyond the sea 
Shall think of childhood's careless day. 
And long, long hours of summer play. 

In the shade of the apple-tree. 

Each year shall give this apple-tree 
A broader flush of roseate bloom, 
A deeper maze of verdurovis gloom, 
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, 
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower. 

The years shall come and pass, but we 
Shall hear no longer, where we lie, 
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, 

In the boughs of the apple-tree. 



128 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And time shall waste this apple-tree. 
Oh, when its aged branches throw 
Thin shadows on the ground below, 
Shall fraud and force and iron will 
Oppress the weak and helpless still ? 

What shall the tasks of mercy be, 
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears 
Of those who live when length of years 

Is wasting this little apple-tree ? 

" Who planted this old apple-tree ? " 
The children of that distant day 
Thus to some aged man shall say ; 
And, gazing on its mossy stem. 
The gray -haired man shall answer them : 

" A poet of the land was he. 
Born in the rude but good old times ; 
'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes. 

On planting the apple-tree." 



THE THIRD OF NOVEMBER, 1861. 

Softly breathes the west-wind beside the ruddy forest, 
Taking leaf by leaf from the branches where he flies. 

Sweetly streams the sunshine, this third day of November, 
Through the golden haze of the quiet autumn skies. 

Tenderly the season has spared the grassy meadows, 

Spared the petted flowers that the old world gave the new, 

Spared the autumn-rose and the garden's group of pansies. 
Late-bloom dandelions and periwinkles blue. 

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered ; 

Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee. 
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them 

Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 129 

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, 
Yet our full-leaved willows are in their freshest green. 

Siich a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing 

With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen. 

Like this kindly season may life's decline come o'er me ; 

Past is manhood's summer, the frosty months are here ; 
Yet be genial airs and a pleasant sunshine left me. 

Leaf, and fruit, and blossom, to mark the closing year ! 

Dreary is the time when the flowers of earth are withered; 

Dreary is the time when the woodland leaves are cast — ■ 
When, upon the hillside, all hardened into iron, 

Howling, like a wolf, flies the amished northern blast. 

Dreary are the years when the eye can look no longer 
With delight on Nature, or hope on human kind ; 

Oh ! may those that whiten my temples as they pass me, 
Leave the heart unfrozen, and spare the cheerful mind ! 



130 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3o!)n €^ori)am palfreg. 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, May 2, 1796. d. April 26, 1881.] 

THE "WITCHCRAFT TRAGEDY. 

It was not to be expected of the colonists of New Eng- 
land that they should be the first to see through a delusion 
which befooled the whole civilized world, and the 
History gravest and most knowing persons in it. Men 
of New , • • J. • -i. 

Enffland ^^® ^^^ Omniscient, nor is it common, any more 

than just, to blame them for not being so. We 
do not find fault with Aristotle for being ignorant of the 
law which directs the movements at once of an apple falling 
from a tree, and of a comet in the distant realms of space. 
We do not pronounce Galileo incapable because he did not 
know the weight of the planet Jupiter, nor Franklin because 
he did not invent the magnetic telegraph. It is rash to say 
that men should rise above their age. They should strive 
to do it; but, after all, what better is it possible for them 
to seize than what is within their reach ? 

A sober consideration of the tenor of human affairs ex- 
pects occasional disturbances of them from "fears of the 
brave and follies of the wise." Nor was the condition of 
the people of New England in the seventeenth century 
at all favorable to that immunity from a superstitious panic 
and madness of the sort in question, which in the most 
propitious circumstances would then have been no easy 
attainment. If any may be specially excused for being led 
astray by gloomy superstitions, it is they who are sur- 
rounded by circumstances, and pressed by griefs and anxie- 
ties, such as incline to sad and unhealthy meditation. The 
experience of the three heroic generations of English exiles 
in Massachusetts had been hard and sorrowful. Of those 



JOHN GORE AM PALFREY. 131 

who were living when the provincial charter came into 
effect, the memory of the oldest went back to the primitive 
times of want and misery ; the middle-aged men had been 
out in arms in the most dreadful of the Indian wars, and 
the middle-aged women had passed years of mourning for 
the husbands, lovers, and brothers whom it had swept 
away. The generation just entered upon the stage had 
been born and reared in melancholy homes. The present 
was full of troubles and forebodings. The venerated char- 
ter had been lost. Social ties had been weakened. Social 
order was insecure. The paths of enterprise were obstructed. 
Industry had little impulse. Poverty was already felt. 
There was danger of destitution. A powerful foreign enemy 
threatened, and the capacity for defence was crippled by 
penury. A people in the mood to which such surroundings 
naturally lead could scarcely be expected to set the example 
of a release from gloomy fancies which ensnared the rest of 
mankind. Nor would it be preposterous to ascribe some 
influence on the spirits and the imagination to the loneli- 
ness of the homes of the settlers, and the harsh aspects of 
the scenery amid which their temper had been educated 
and their daily life was passed. 

But, with or without peculiar exposure to delusion, the 
people of New England believed what the wisest men of 
the world believed at the end of the seventeenth century, 
and never was a people in whom honest conviction of what- 
ever kind was surer to shape itself in act. They read in 
the Bible the command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch 
to live," and, instead of understanding the Hebrew legis- 
lator as denouncing in these words a ■ class of juggling 
impostors, whose tricks were connected with that idolatry 
which in every form was a capital crime under the Mosaic 
polity, they understood him to recognize the existence of 
practitioners really possessing supernatural powers, derived 
from the Prince of the power of the air, and using them for 
purposes mischievous to men and hateful to God. Oracles 
of their faith from the other side of the water had taught 



132 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

that on tlie good Christians of ISTew England God had pecu- 
liarly imposed the responsibility of defeating the Devil, 
in the place where he could " show most malice," because 
there " he is hated and hateth most." That the Devil, with 
all the vast and malignant power which they ascribed to 
him, was their enemy, was an unquestioned fact, which 
to them carried not an overmastering but an arousing 
terror. They must give him battle bravely, and abide the 
issue, for they were the Lord's soldiers ; and since the 
adversary did not wear a bodily shape for them to strike 
at, they must make his nefarious instruments feel their 
unsparing blows. 

Nor, as an independent influence, is the naked fact to be 
overlooked that witchcraft was a felony by statute. There 
is no denying that a vital, constitutional, ingrained rever- 
ence for law as such, additional to and even irrespective of 
considerations of the equity or wisdom of any of its provis- 
ions at a given tiane, has been in all times a characteristic 
of the people of New England ; and the hanging of witches 
was the form which a fanatical devotion to law took in 
Essex County at the end of the seventeenth century. Witch- 
craft stood on the books as a capital offence ; and when the 
authorized expounders of the law were seen to take part 
against the accused, the mighty conservative element in the 
community was summoned to the oppressor's side. In 
the judgment of an important class among the people, to 
interpose for the sufferers was to speak evil of dignities, 
and associate one's self with those who sought to unsettle 
the foundations of society. In such circumstances, the 
more enlightened lovers of Law and Order — of Order, 
which can never be permanently dissociated from humanity 
— of LaAV, which justice always ought to underlie and 
inform — were forced into a false position. To manifest 
their loyalty many felt themselves bound, in conscience and 
duty, to do violence to their sentiments of justice, human- 
ity, and honor. They were placed at a great disadvantage 
for any useful interference, when they could only attempt 



JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. 133 

it at the cost of seeming to take a factious part, which in 
truth they loathed. When they echoed the maxims of 
Stougliton and his set, they were in much the same state 
of mind as were the loyal citizens of the same community 
who, a hundred and sixty years later, presented their thanks 
to the champion of the Fugitive Slave Bill for refreshing 
their sense of obligation in respect to the demands of that 
enactment. 

Happily for the present age, it understands the laws of 
the divine economy and of the human mind otherwise than 
as they were understood in the time of the Dutch King of 
England. By reason of convictions now outgrown, twenty 
innocent persons — not hundreds and thousands of inno- 
cent persons, as elsewhere under the same charge — were 
pvit to death in Massachusetts in that age. The madness 
of which they were the victims raged for about half a year 
in a part of that province, mostly in a part of one county, 
instead of the long periods of time, and the large districts 
of country, in which it has done its dreadful work else- 
where. Unoffending men and Avomen were pat out of the 
pale of sympathy; were put in gaol, were put in chains, 
were put to death. And this was sad enoitgh, and l)ad 
enough. But they were not burned to death, nor Avere they 
tortured upon the rack, nor in the boots, nor by the thumb- 
screw, as for the same supposed offence others by superior 
barbarity have been tortured and killed elsewhere. 

There is a difference — and this the deluded people of 
Massachusetts in the worst access of their frenzy knew — 
between doing what is thought needful for security, and 
making the agonies of the helpless feed the rage of the 
inhuman and strong. Nor among the many communities 
in which at different times this shocking infatuation has 
gained a foothold, is it possible to name one in which rea- 
son, courage, and humanity have so soon resumed their 
sway as in Massachusetts, and so Avell done their proper 
office. 

Nor is it possible to avoid considering of what stuff some 



134 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

men aud women of tliat stock were made, when twenty of 
them went to the gallows rather than soil their consciences 
by the lie of a confession. Nor can even the conduct of 
the blinded magistrates be set down as merely brutal fury, 
when they uniformly pardoned such as acknowledged their 
offence and promised blameless lives for the future. 



EDWARD CO ATE PINKNEY. 135 



[b. London, England, October 1, 1802. d. April 11, 1828.] 
A HEALTH. 

I FILL this cup to one made up 

Of loveliness alone, — 
A woman, of lier gentle sex 

The seeming paragon ; 
To whom the better elements 

And kindly stars have given 
A form so fair, that like the air, 

'Tis less of earth than heaven. 

Her every tone is music's own, 

Like those of morning birds ; 
And something more than melody 

Dwells ever in her words ; 
The coinage of her heart are they, 

And from her lips each flows 
As one may see the burden'd bee 

Forth issue from the rose. 

Affections are as thoughts to her. 

The measures of her hours ; 
Her feelings have the fragrancy, 

The freshness of young flowers ; 
And lovely passions, changing oft, 

So fill her, she appears 
The image of themselves by turns, — 

The idol of past years ! 



136 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Of her bright face one glance will trace 

A picture on the brain ; 
And of her voice in echoing hearts 

A sound must long remain ; 
But memory, such as mine of her, 

So very much endears, 
When death is nigh, my latest sigh 

Will not be life's, but hers. 

I fill this cup to one made up 

Of loveliness alone, — 
A woman, of her gentle sex 

The seeming paragon. 
Her health ! and would on earth there stood 

Some more of such a frame. 
That life might be all poetry, 

And weariness a name. 



RUFUS CHOATE. l37 



IXufus €\imtt. 

[b. Essex, Massachusetts, October 1, 1799. d. July 13, 1859.] 

PRIVATE CHARACTER OF WEBSTER. 

To appreciate the variety and accuracy of his knowledge, 
and even the true compass of his mind, you must have had 
some familiarity with his friendly written corre- n^^^ ^ _ 
spondence, and you must have conversed witli him ration Dis- 
with some degree of freedom. There, more than course, July 
in senatorial or forensic debate, gleamed the true ^'''' ^^^'^' 
riches of his genius, as well as the goodness of his large 
heart, and the kindness of his noble nature. There, with 
no longer a great part to discharge, no longer compelled to 
weigh and measure propositions, to tread the dizzy heights 
which part the antagonisms of the Constitution, to put aside 
allusions and illustrations which crowded on his mind in 
action, but which the dignity of a public appearance had to 
reject ; in the confidence of hospitality, (which ever he dis- 
pensed as a prince who also was a friend,) his memory — 
one of his most extraordinary faculties, quite in propor- 
tion to all the rest — swept free over the readings and labors 
of more than half a century ; and then, allusions, direct and 
ready quotations, a passing mature criticism, sometimes only 
a recollection of the mere emotions which a glorious pas- 
sage or interesting event had once excited, darkening for a 
moment the face and filling the eye, often an instructive 
exposition of a current maxim of philosophy or politics, 
the history of an invention, the recital of some incident 
casting a new light on some transaction or some institution, 
— this flow of unstudied conversation, quite as remarkable 
as any other exhibition of his mind, better than any other, 
perhaps, at once opened an unexpected glimpse of his vari- 



138 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ous acquirements, and gave you to experience, delightedly, 
that the "■ mild sentiments have their eloquence as well as 
the stormy passions." 

There must be added, next, the element of an impressive 
character, inspiring regard, trust, and admiration, not unmin- 
gled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically a charm such 
as belongs only to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In 
its combination with so much fame, so much force of will, 
and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated the imagina- 
tion and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and youth, 
and it was more than ever so in the few last months of his 
long life. 

It is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents 
in largest measure, honor, love, obedience ; that he eagerly 
appropriated the first means which he could command to 
relieve the father from the debts contracted to educate his 
brother and himself; that he selected his first place of pro- 
fessional practice that he might soothe the coming on of his 
old age ; that all through life he neglected no occasion — 
sometimes when leaning on the arm of a friend, alone, with 
faltering voice, sometimes in the presence of great assem- 
blies, where the tide of general emotion made it graceful — 
to express his " affectionate veneration of him who reared 
and defended the log cabin in which his elder brothers and 
sisters were born, against savage violence and destruction, 
cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and 
through the fire and blood of some years of revolutionary 
war, shrank from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve 
his country, and to raise his children to a condition better 
than his own." 

Equally beautiful was his love of all his kindred and all 
his friends. When I hear him accused of selfishness, and a 
cold, bad nature, I recall him lying sleepless all night, not 
without tears of boyhood, conferring with Ezekiel how the 
darling desire of both hearts should be compassed, and 
he, too, admitted to the precious privileges of education; 
courageously pleading the cause of both brothers in the 



RUFUS CHOATE. 139 

morning ; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of 
the mother ; suspending his studies of the law, and register- 
ing deeds and teaching school to earn the means, for both, 
of availing themselves of the opportunity which the paren- 
tal self-sacrifice had placed within their reach ; loving him 
through life, mourning him when dead, with a love and a 
sorrow very wonderful, passing the sorrow of woman; I 
recall the husband, the father of the living and of the early 
departed, the friend, the counsellor of many years, and my 
heart grows too full and liquid for the refutation of words. 

His affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well 
as the presence of kindred blood, diffused itself through all 
his private life, gave sincerity to all his hospitalities, kind- 
ness to his eye, warmth to the pressure of his hand ; made 
his greatness and genius unbend themselves to the playful- 
ness of childhood, flowed out in graceful memories indulged 
of the past or the dead, of incidents when life was young 
and promised to be happy, — gave generous sketches of his 
rivals, — the high contention now hidden by the handful of 
earth, — hours passed fifty years ago with great authors, 
recalled for the vernal emotions which then they made to 
live and revel in the soul. And from these conversations 
of friendship, no man — no man, old or young — went away 
to remember one word of profaneness, one allusion of indeli- 
cacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving suggestion, one 
doubt cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of enthu- 
siasm, of the progress of man, — one doubt cast on righteous- 
ness, or temperance, or judgment to come. 

Every one of his tastes and recreations announced the 
same type of character. His love of agriculture, of sports 
in the open air, of the outward world in starlight and storms, 
and sea and boundless wilderness, — partly a result of the 
influences of the first fourteen years of his life, perpetiiated 
like its other affections and its other lessons of a mother's 
love, — the Psalms, the Bible, the stories of the wars, — 
partly the return of an unsophisticated and healthful nature, 
tiring for a space of the idle business of political life, its 



140 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

distinctions, its artificialities, to employments, to sensations 
which interest without agitating the universal race alike, 
as God has framed it, in which one feels himself only a 
man, fashioned from the earth, set to till it, appointed to 
return to it, yet made in the image of his Maker, and with 
a spirit that shall not die, — all displayed a man whom the 
most various intercourse with the world, the longest career 
of strife and honors, the consciousness of intellectual suprem- 
acy, the coming in of a wide fame, constantly enlarging, left, 
as he was at first, natural, simple, manly, genial, kind. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 141 



Natfjaniel |^atot!}ontr. 

[b. Salem, MasBachuBetts, July 4, 1804. d. May 18, 1864.] 
LITTLE PEARL IN THE FOREST. 

Pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely, while 
her mother sat talking with the clergyman. The great 
black forest — stern as it showed itself to those 
who brought the guilt and troubles of the world Lettfj.*^^"^^^* 
into its bosom — became the playmate of the 
lonely infant, as well as it knew how. Sombre as it was, it 
put on the kindliest of its moods to welcome her. It 
offered her the partridge-berries, the growth of the pre- 
ceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and now 
red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. These 
Pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavor. 
The small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to 
move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a brood 
of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but soon re- 
pented of her fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not 
to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on an old branch, allowed 
Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of 
greeting as alarm. A squirrel, from the lofty depths of his 
domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment, — for 
a squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage, 
that it is hard to distinguish between his moods, — so he 
chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her 
head. It was a last year's nut, and already gnawed by his 
sharp tooth. A fox, startled from his sleep by her light 
footstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at Pearl, as 
doubting Avhether it were better to steal off, or renew his 
nap on the same spot. A wolf, it is said, — but here the 
tale has surely lapsed into the improbable, — came up, and 



142 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

smelt of Pearl's robe, and offered his savage head to be 
patted by her hand. The truth seems to be, however, that 
the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, 
all recognized a kindred wildness in the human child. And 
she was gentler here than in the quarry-margined streets 
of the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. The flowers 
appeared to know it ; and one and another whispered as she 
passed, " Adorn thyself with me ! thou beautiful child, 
adorn thyself with me ! " — and, to please them, Pearl 
gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and 
some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held 
down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair, 
and her young waist, and became a nymph-child, or an infant 
dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the 
antique wood. In such guise had Pearl adorned herself, 
when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. 



THE JUDGE'S VIGIL. 

Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the 
corners of the room. The shadows of the tall furniture 
grow deeper, and at first become more definite ; 
of the then, spreading wider, they lose their distinctness 

Seven of outline in the dark gray tide of oblivion, as it 

Gables. were, that creeps slowly over the various objects, 
and the one human figure sitting in the midst of them. 
The gloom has not entered from without ; it has brooded 
here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time, will 
possess itself of everything. The judge's face, indeed, 
rigid, and singularly white, refuses to melt into this univer- 
sal solvent. Fainter and fainter grows the light. It is as 
if another double-handful of darkness had been scattered 
through the air. Now it is no longer gray, but sable. 
There is still a faint appearance at the window ; neither a 
glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer, — any phase of light 
would express something far brighter than this doubtful 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 143 

perception, or sense, rather, that there is a window there. 
Has it yet vanished ? Ko ! — yes ! — not quite ! And there 
is still the swarthy whiteness, — we shall venture to marry 
these ill-agreeing words, — the swarthy whiteness of Judge 
Pyncheon's face. The features are all gone ; there is only 
the paleness of them left. And how looks it now ? There 
is no window ! There is no face ! An infinite, inscrutable 
blackness has annihilated sight ! Where is our universe ? 
All crumbled away from us ; and we, adrift in chaos, may 
hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and 
murmuring about, in quest of what was once a world ! 

Is there no other sound ? One other, and a fearful one. 
It is the ticking of the judge's watch, which, ever since 
Hepzibah left the room in search of Clifford, he has been 
holding in his hand. Be the cause what it may, this little, 
quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time's pulse, repeating its 
small strokes with such busy regularity, in Judge Pyn- 
cheon's motionless hand, has an effect of terror, which we 
do not find in any other accompaniment of the scene. 

But listen ! that puff of the breeze was louder ; it had a 
tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned 
itself, and afilicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, 
for five days past. The wind has veered about ! It now 
comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking hold of 
the aged frame-work of the seven gables, gives it a shake, 
like a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist. 
Another and another sturdy tussle with the blast ! The 
old house creaks again, and makes a vociferous but some- 
what unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat — (the big 
flue, we mean, of its wide chimney) — partly in complaint 
at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a 
half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling 
kind of bluster roars behind the fire-board. A door has 
slammed above-stairs. A window, perhaps, has been left 
open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to 
be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful wind-instruments 
are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with the 



144 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh, 
and sob, and shriek, — and to smite with sledge-hammers, 
airy, but ponderous, iu some distant chamber, — and to 
tread along the entries as with stately foot-steps, and rustle 
up and down the stair-case, as with silks miraculously stiff, 
— whenever the gale catches the house with a window 
open, and gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an 
attendant spirit here ! It is too awful ! this clamor of the 
wind through the lonely house ; the judge's quietude, as he 
sits invisible ; and that pertinacious ticking of his watch ! 



THE SKEPTIC'S DOOM. 

Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the 
log, and moved, it might be by a perception of some remote 

analogy between his own case and that of this 
* ^^ self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, 

which, more than any other token, expressed the 
condition of his inward being. From that moment, the 
merriment of the party was at an end ; they stood aghast, 
dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated 
around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to 
mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. 
Then, whispering one to another that it was late, — that 
the moon was almost down, — that the August night was 
growing chill, — they hurried homewards, leaving the lime- 
burner and little Joe to deal as they might with their 
unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the 
open space on the hill-side was a solitude, set in a vast 
gloom of forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the fire- 
light glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black 
foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of 
sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay 
the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf- 
strewn soil. And it seemed to little Joe — a timorous and 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 145 

imaginative child — that the silent forest was holding its 
breath until some fearful thing should happen. 

Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed 
the door of the kiln ; then looking over his shoulder at the 
lime-l)urner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them 
to retire to rest. 

" For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. " I have matters 
that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the 
fire, as I used to do in the old time." 

" And call the devil out of the furnace to keep you com- 
pany, I suppose," muttered Bartram, who had been making 
intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above men- 
tioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many devils 
as you like ! For my part, I shall be all the better for a 
snooze. Come, Joe ! " 

As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked 
back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for 
his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible 
loneliness in which this man had enveloped himself. 

When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the 
crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little 
spirts of fire that issued throvigh the chinks of the door. 
These trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the slight- 
est hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he 
was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had 
been wrought upon him by the search to which he had de- 
voted himself. He remembered how the night dew had 
fallen upon him, — how the dark forest had whispered to 
him, — how the stars had gleamed upon him, — a simple 
and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and 
ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what ten- 
derness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and 
what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun 
to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the 
inspiration of his life ; with what reverence he had then 
looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple origi- 
nally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred 



146 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

by a brother ; with what awful fear he had deprecated the 
success of his pursuit, and prayed the Unpardonable Sin 
might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that vast 
intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed 
the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The idea 
that possessed his life had operated as a means of education ; 
it had gone on cultivating his powers to the highest point 
of which they were susceptible ; it had raised him from the 
level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a starlit eminence, 
whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore 
of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. 
So much for the intellect ! But where was the heart ? That, 
indeed, had withered — had contracted — had hardened — 
had perished ! It had ceased to partake of the universal 
throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of human- 
ity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers 
or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy 
sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets ; 
he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the sub- 
ject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and 
woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved 
them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his 
study. 

Thus Ethan Brand began to be a fiend. He began to be 
so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to 
keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. And now, 
as his highest effort and inevitable development, — as the 
bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his 
life's labor, — he had produced the Unpardonable Sin ! 

" What more have I to seek ? What more to achieve ? " 
said Ethan Brand to himself. " My task is done, and well 
done ! " 

Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait, 
and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against 
the stone circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached 
the top of the structure. It was a space of perhaps ten feet, 
across from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper sur- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 147 

face of the immense mass of burning marble with which the 
kiln was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and frag- 
ments of marble were red-hot and vividly on fire, sending 
up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and 
danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose 
again, with continual and multitudinous activity. As the 
lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the 
blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath 
that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shriv- 
elled him up in a moment. 

Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. 
The blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the 
wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its 
expression ; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging 
into his gulf of intensest torment. 

" Mother Earth," cried he, '' who art no more my 
Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be 
resolved ! mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, 
and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet ! stars of 
heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward 
and upward ! — farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly ele- 
ment of Fire, — henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace 
me, as I do thee ! " 

That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled 
heavily through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little 
son ; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, 
and seemed still present in the rude hovel when they opened 
their eyes to the daylight. 

'' (Jp, boy, up ! " cried the lime-burner, staring about him. 
'' Thank Heaven, the night is gone, at last ; and rather than 
pass such another, I would watch my lime-kiln wide awake 
for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand, with his humbug 
of an unpardonable sin, has done me no such mighty favor 
in taking my place ! " 

He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept 
fast hold of his father's hand. The early sunshine was 
already pouring its gold upon the mountain-tops ; and though 



148 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled cheerfully in 
the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. 
The village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled 
away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully 
in the hollow of the great hand of Providence. Every 
dwelling was distinctly visible ; the little spires of the two 
churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of 
brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weath- 
ercocks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, 
smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath 
the stoop. Old Graylock was glorified with a golden crown 
upon his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the 
surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist or 
cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmos- 
phere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that 
rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood 
that sailed in the air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man 
might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was 
so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it. 

To supply that charm of the familiar and homely which 
nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage- 
coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver 
sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and 
intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate har- 
mony, of which the original performer could lay claim to 
little share. The great hills played a concert among them- 
selves, each contributing a strain of airy sweetness. Little 
Joe's face brightened at once. 

"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, 
" that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains 
all seem glad of it ! " 

"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he 
has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five hun- 
dred bushels of lime are not spoiled. If I catch the fellow 
hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him into the 
furnace ! " 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 149 

With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of 
the kiln. After a moment's panse, he called to his son. 
. " Come np here, Joe ! " said he. 

So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's 
side. The marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white 
lime. But on the surface, in the midst of the circle, — 
snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime, — lay 
a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after 
long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs — 
strange to say — was the shape of a human heart. 

" Was the fellow's heart made of marble ? " cried Bar- 
tram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. ''At any 
rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime ; and, 
taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a bushel the 
richer for him." 

So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, 
letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand 
were crumbled into fragments. 



150 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



iairi)arti Hiltircti). 

[b. Deerfield, Massachusetts, June 22, 1807. d. July 11, 1865.] 

ABORIGINAL AMERICA. 

The Indians applied all their sagacity to the knowledge 
of wood-craft, which they carried to a high degree of per- 
fection. They could trace their game or their 
History of gnemy by the slightest indication — grass bent, 
States leaves trampled, or twigs broken. Inferior to 

Europeans in strength and in capacity to perform 
regular labor to which they were unaccustomed, their activ- 
ity, powers of endurance, and acuteness of sight and hear- 
ing were extraordinary. Guided by the stars and sun, and 
supported by a little parched corn pounded and moistened 
with water, they performed, with unerring sagacity, im- 
mense journeys through the woody or grassy wilderness. 
The habits of almost all the tribes were more or less migra- 
tory. They knew little or nothing of the comforts of a 
settled habitation. They seemed always uneasy, always on 
the point of going somewhere else. Their frequent jour- 
neys had traced, in many places, trails or foot-paths through 
the woods or across the prairies. It was their custom to 
kindle annual fires, by which the grass and underwood were 
consumed. Except among the swamps and rocky hills, the 
forests thus acquired an open and park-like appearance. 

Trees, remarkable for height and beauty of foliage, and 
varying in species with every variety of soil and climate, 
overspread, in vast forests, all the eastern portion of North 
America, from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay. Be- 
yond the mountains, in the neighborhood of the Mississippi, 
the open prairies commenced, and, on the western side of 
that river, gradually usurped almost the whole country. 



RICHARD IIILDRETH. 151 

Besides oaks, and pines, and other Avell-known genera of 
Europe, the American forests contained many trees, and a 
"^ great variety of shrubs and plants, entirely new. Even 
such as seemed most familiar to visitors from Europe, were 
specifically different from those of the Old World. The 
same was true of birds, fish, and forest animals. The ani- 
mated nature of North America was peculiar to itself. 
Beasts of prey, the wolf, and several varieties of the cat 
tribe, were few in number and comparatively diminutive in 
size and strength. The black bear, a favorite article of food 
with the Indians, could hardly be reckoned of that class. 
It was, however, upon several varieties of the deer that the 
tribes of the forest region chiefly depended for meat. The 
more northern forests seem to have furnished the best hunt- 
ing grounds ; it was there only that the moose and the elk 
were found. These northern regions abounded also with 
beaver and other valuable fur-bearing animals ; but, till a 
regular trade and intercourse were opened with Europeans, 
these animals remained comparatively undisturbed. The 
northern rivers — those, at least, of the Atlantic slope — 
annually swarmed, at certain seasons, with salmon, bass, 
shad, herring, sturgeon. The northern lakes were also full 
of fish. The shell-fish of the sea-coast furnished an impor- 
tant resource to some tribes. Water-fowl were abundant ; 
wild turkey traversed all the American forests. 

The vast grassy plains of central North America, with 
their immense herds of bison, or buffalo, might seem to 
invite a pastoral life ; but nothing of that sort was known. 
Till the southwestern tribes obtained horses from the Span- 
iards, the Indians had no domestic animals except a few 
small dogs. Besides hunting and fishing, they supported 
themselves in part, especially the more Southern confedera- 
cies, among whom game was comparatively scarce, by culti- 
vating patches of maize or Indian corn, that remarkable 
grain so widely diffused, in many varieties, over the whole 
of America, though nowhere found in a wild state. They 
cultivated, also, several sorts of beans and pease, besides 



152 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

squashes, pumpkins, watcv-inelons, and a number of edible 
roots, of wliicli, among the Southern tribes, the sweet-potato 
seems to have been one. They had orchards of native phims ; 
and wikl berries, gathered and dried, constituted a part of 
their winter store. Among the Southern tribes the peach 
was early introduced, and the apple among the Northern. 
Their agricultural instruments were of the rudest sort, large 
shells, fiat stones, or stakes sharpened by fire. They could 
only fell trees by burning round them. 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, 153 



Natijanifl ^arfttr SEillts. 

[b. Portland, Maine, Jamiaiy 20, 1800. d. January 20, 1867.] 
TWO WOMEN. 

The shadows lay along Broadway, 

'Twas near the twilight-tide, 
And slowly there a lady fair 

Was walking in her pride. 
Alone walk'd she ; but, viewlessly, 

Walk'd spirits at her side. 

Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet. 

And Honor charm'd the air ; 
And all astir look'd kind on her, 

And called her good as fair, — 
For all God ever gave to her 

She kept with chary care. 

She kept with care her beauties rare 

From lovers warm and true. 
For her heart was cold to all but gold. 

And the rich come not to woo, — 
But honor'd well are charms to sell 

If priests the selling do. 

Now walking there was one more fair, — 

A slight girl, lily -pale ; 
And she had unseen company 

To make the spirit quail, — 
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn. 

And nothing could avail. 



154 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

No mercy now can clear her brow 
For this world's peace to pray ; 

For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, 
Her woman's heart gave way ! — 

But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven 
By man is cursed alway ! 



SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 

I love to look on a scene like this, 

Of wild and careless play. 
And persuade myself that I am not old. 

And my locks are not yet gray ; 
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart. 

And makes his pulses fly. 
To catch the thrill of a happy voice 

And the light of a pleasant eye. 

I have walk'd the world for fourscore years, 

And they say that I am old — 
That my heart is ripe for the reaper Death, 

And my years are well-nigh told. 
It is very true — it is very true — 

I am old, and I " bide my time " ; 
But my heart will leap at a scene like this. 

And I half renew my prime. 

Play on ! play on ! I am with you there. 

In the midst of your merry ring ; 
I can feel the thrill of the daring jump, 

And the rush of the breathless swing, 
I hide with you in the fragrant hay. 

And I whoop the smother'd call, 
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor, 

And I care not for the fall. 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 155 

I am willing to die when my time shall come, 

And I shall be glad to go — 
For the world, at best, is a weary place, 

And my pulse is getting low ; 
But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail 

In treading its gloomy way ; 
And it wiles my heart from its dreariness 

To see the young so gay. 



156 AMEBIC AX LITERATURE. 



[b. Florida, New York, May 16, 1801. d. October 10, 1872.] 
THE SOURCE OF PUBLIC VIRTUE. 

We see only the rising of the sun of empire — only the 
fair seeds and beginnings of a great nation. Whether that 
glowing orb shall attain to a meridian height, or 
True Great- f^n suddenly from its glorious sphere — whether 
„ . those prolific seeds shall mature into autumnal 

ripeness, or shall perish, yielding no harvest — 
depends on God's will and providence. But God's will and 
providence operate not by casualty or caprice, but by fixed 
and revealed laws. If we would secure the greatness set 
before us, we must find the way which those laws indicate, 
and keep within it. That way is new and all untried. We 
departed early — we departed at the beginning — from the 
beaten track of national ambition. Our lot was cast in an 
age of revolution — a revolution which was to bring all 
mankind from a state of servitude to the exercise of self- 
government — from under the tyranny of physical force to 
the gentle sway of opinion — from under subjection to mat- 
ter to dominion over nature. 

It was ours to lead the way, to take up the cross of repub- 
licanism and bear it before the nations, to fight its earliest 
battles, to enjoy its earliest triumphs, to illustrate its puri- 
fying and elevating virtues, and by our courage and resolu- 
tion, our moderation and our magnanimity, to cheer and 
sustain its future followers through the baptism of blood 
and the martyrdom of fire. A mission so noble and benev- 
olent demands a generous and self-denying enthusiasm. 

Our greatness is to be won by beneficence without ambi- 
tion. We are in danger of losing that holy zeal. We are 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 157 

surrounded by temptations. Our dwellings become palaces, 
and our villages are transformed, as if by magic, into great 
cities. Fugitives froin famine and oppression and the 
sword crowd our shores, and jiroclaini to us that we alone 
are free, and great, and happy. Ambition for martial fame 
and the lust of conquest have entered the warm, living, 
youthful heart of the republic. Our empire enlarges. The 
castles of enemies fall before our advancing armies ; the 
gates of cities open to receive them. The continent and its 
islands seem ready to fall within our grasp, and more than 
even fabulous wealth opens under our feet. No public 
virtue can withstand, none ever encountered, such seduc- 
tions as these. Our own virtue and moderation must be 
renewed and fortified under circumstances so new and 
peculiar. 

Where shall we seek the influence adequate to a task so 
arduous as this ? Shall we invoke the press and the desk ? 
They only reflect the actual condition of the public morals, 
and cannot change them. 

Shall we resort to the executive authority? The time 
has passed when it could compose and modify the political 
elements around it. Shall we go to the Senate ? Conspira- 
cies, seditions, and corruptions, in all free countries, have 
begun there. Where, then, shall we go, to find an agency 
that can uphold and renovate declining public virtue? 
Where should we go, but there, where all republican virtue 
begins and must end — where the Promethean fire is ever 
to be rekindled, until it shall finally expire — where motives 
are formed and passions disciplined? — to the domestic fire- 
side and humble school, where the American citizen is 
trained. Instruct him there, that it will not be enough 
that he can claim for his country Lacedaemonian heroism, 
or even the Italian's boast, — 

" Terra potens atque ubere glebse," — 

but that more than Spartan valor and more than Eoman 
magnificence is required of her. Go, then, ye laborers in a 



158 AMERICAN' LITERATURE. 

noble cause, gather the young Catholic and the young Prot- 
estant alike into the nursery of freedom ; and teach them 
there that, although religion has many and different shrines 
on which may be made the offering of a " broken spirit," 
which God will not despise, yet that their country has 
appointed only one altar and one sacrifice for all her sons, 
and that ambition and avarice must be slain on that altar, 
for it is consecrated to humanity. 



GEORGE PERKINS MARSH. 159 



George ^Perkins lEarsJ), 

[b. ■Woodstock, Vermont, March 15, 1801. d. July 23, 1882.] 
LIMITS OF HUMAN POWER. 

It is, on the one hand, rash and unphilosophical to at- 
tempt to set limits to the ultimate power of man over inor- 
ganic nature, and it is unprofitable, on the other, 
to speculate on what may be accomplished by the The Earth 
discovery of now unknown and uniraagined natural f'^ ° ' ® 
forces, or even by the invention of new arts and Action, 
new processes. But since we have seen aerosta- 
tion, the motive power of elastic vapors, the wonders of 
modern telegraphy, the destructive explosiveness of gun- 
powder, of nitro-glycerine, and even of a substance so harm- 
less, unresisting, and inert as cotton, there is little in the 
way of mechanical achievement which seems hopelessly 
impossible, and it is hard to restrain the imagination from 
wandering forward a couple of generations to an epoch when 
our descendants shall have advanced so far beyond us in 
physical conquest, as we have marched beyond the trophies 
erected by our grandfathers. There are, nevertheless, in 
actual practice, limits to the efficiency of the forces which 
we are now able to bring into the field, and we must admit 
that, for the present, the agencies known to man and con- 
trolled by him are inadequate to the reducing of great 
Alpine precipices to such slopes as would enable them to 
support a vegetable clothing, or to the covering of large 
extents of denuded rock with earth, and planting upon 
them a forest growth. Yet among the mysteries, which 
science is hereafter to reveal, there may be still undiscov- 
ered methods of accomplishing even grander wonders than 
these. Mechanical philosophers have suggested the possi- 



160 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

bility of accumulating and treasuring up for human use 
some of the greater natural forces which the action of the 
elements puts forth with such astonishing energy. Could 
we gather, and bind, and make subservient to our control, 
the power which a West Indian hurricane exerts through a 
small area in one continuous blast, or the momentum ex- 
pended by the waves, in a tempestuous winter, upon the 
breakwater at Cherbourg, or the lifting power of the tide, 
for a month, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, or the pres- 
sure of a square mile of sea-water at the depth of five thou- 
sand fathoms, or a moment of the might of an earthquake 
or a volcano, our age — which moves no mountains and casts 
them into the sea by faith alone — might hope to scarp the 
rugged walls of the Alps and Pyrenees and Mount Taurus, 
robe them once more in a vegetation as rich as that of their 
pristine woods, and turn their wasting torrents into refresh- 
ing streams. 

Could this old world, which man has overthrown, be re- 
builded, could human cunning rescue its wasted hillsides 
and its deserted plains from solitude or mere nomade occu- 
pation, from barrenness, from nakedness, and from insalu- 
brity, and restore the ancient fertility and healthfulness 
of the Etruscan sea-coast, the Campagna and the Pontine 
marshes, of Calabria, of Sicily, of the Peloponnesus and 
insular and continental Greece, of Asia Minor, of the slopes 
of Lebanon and Hermon, of Palestine, of the Syrian desert, 
of Mesopotamia and the delta of the Euphrates, of the 
Cyrenaica, of Africa jjroper, Numidia, and Mauritania, the 
thronging millions of Europe might still find room on 
the Eastern continent, and the main current of emigration 
be turned towards the rising instead of the setting sun. 

But changes like these must await not only great politi- 
cal and moral revolutions in the governments and peoples 
by whom those regions are now possessed, but, especially, a 
command of pecuniary and mechanical means not at present 
enjoyed by those nations, and a more advanced and generally 
diffused knowledge of the processes by which the ameliora- 



GEORGE PERKINS MARSH. 161 

tion of soil and climate is possible than now anywhere 
exists. Until such circumstances shall conspire to favor 
the work of geographical regeneration, the countries I have 
mentioned, with here and there a local exception, will con- 
tinue to sink into yet deeper desolation, and in the mean- 
time the American continent, Southern Africa, Australia, 
New Zealand, and the smaller oceanic islands, will be almost 
the only theatres where man is engaged, on a great scale, in 
transforming the face of nature. 



162 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Ealpi) Maltio (JHmrrson* 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803. d. April 27, 1882.] 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon 
our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by- 
all the stars of God, find the earth below not in 
■^ ® , unison with these, but are hindered from action by 

Scholar. ^^® disgust which the principles on which busi- 
ness is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die 
of disgust, some of them suicides. 

What is the remedy ? They did not yet see, and thou- 
sands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers 
for the career do not yet see, that if the single man plant 
himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the 
huge world will come round to him. Patience, — patience ; 
with the shades of all the good and great for company ; and 
for solace the perspective of your own infinite life ; and for 
work the study and the communication of principles, the 
making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the 
world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be 
an unit ; — not to be reckoned one character ; — not to yield 
that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, 
but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thou- 
sand, of the party, the section, to which we belong ; and our 
opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south ? 
Not so, brothers and friends, — please God, ours shall not 
be so. We will walk on our own feet ; we will work with 
our own hands, we will speak our own minds. The study 
of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, 
and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the 
love of man shall be a wall of defence and a Avreath of joy 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 163 

around all. A nation of men will for the first time exist, 
because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul, 
which also inspires all men. 



OPPORTUNITY. 

One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the 
critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every 
day is the best day in the year. No man has 
learned anything rightly until he knows that every -^^ 
day is Doomsday. 'Tis the old secret of the gods 
that they come in low disguises. 'Tis the vulgar great who 
come dizened with gold and jewels. Keal kings hide away 
their crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a j)lain and poor 
exterior. 

In the Norse legend of our ancestors, Odin dwells in 
a fisher's hut and patches a boat. In the Hindoo legends, 
Hari dwells a peasant among peasants. In the Greek legend, 
Apollo lodges with the shepherds of Admetus, and Jove 
liked to rusticate among the poor Ethiopians. So, in our 
history, Jesus is born in a barn, and his twelve peers are 
fishermen. 'Tis the very principle of science that Nature 
shows herself best in beasts ; it was the maxim of Aristotle 
and Lucretius; and, in modern times, of Swedenborg, and of 
Hahnemann. The order of changes in the o.^^ determines 
the age of fossil strata. So it was the rule of our poets, in 
the legends of fairy lore, that the fairies largest in power 
were the least in size. In the Christian graces, humility 
stands highest of all in the form of the Madonna; and 
in life, this is the secret of the wise. We owe to genius 
always the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the com- 
mon, and showing us that divinities are sitting disguised in 
the seeming gang of gypsies and pedlers. In daily life, 
what distinguishes the master is the using those materials 
he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, 
or what others have used well. " A general," said Bona- 



164 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

parte, " always has troops enough, if he only knows how to 
employ those he has, and. bivouacs with them." Do not 
refuse the employment which the hour brings you, for one 
more ambitious. The highest heaven of wisdom is alike 
near from every point, and thou must find it, if at all, by 
methods native to thyself alone. 



OBEDIENCE. 

A little consideration of what takes place around us every 
day, would show us that a higher law than that of our will 
regulates events ; that our painful labors are un- 
Spiritual necessary and fruitless, that only in our easy, sim- 
ple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by con- 
tenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. Belief 
and love, — a believing love will relieve us of a vast load 
of care. my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the 
centre of nature and over the will of every man, so that 
none of us can wrong the universe. It has so infused its 
strong enchantment into nature that we prosper when we 
accept its advice, and when we struggle to wound its crea- 
tures our hands are glued to our sides, or they beat our own 
breasts. The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. 
We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and 
by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why need 
you choose so painfully your place and occupation and asso- 
ciates and mode of action and of entertainment ? Certainly 
there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of 
balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a 
fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle 
of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all 
whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, 
to right, and a perfect contentment. Then you put all gain- 
sayers in the wrong. Then you are the world, the measure 
of right, of truth, of beauty. If we would not be marplots 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 165 

with our miserable interferences, the work, the society, let- 
ters, arts, science, religion of men would go on far better 
than now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of 
the world, and still predicted from the bottom of the heart, 
Avould organize iteelf, as do now the rose and the air and the 
sun. 



THE MORAL LAW IN NATURE. 

It has already been illustrated that every natural process 
is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the 
centre of nature and radiates to the circumference. 
It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every 
relation, and every process. All things with which we deal 
preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel ? The 
chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, 
sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring 
to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in 
the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the 
merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience 
precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion : because 
all organizations are radically alike. Nor can it be doubted 
that this moral sentiment which thus scents the air, grows 
in the grain, and impregnates the waters of the world, is 
caught by man and sinks into his soul. The moral influ- 
ence of nature upon every individual is that amount of 
truth which it illustrates to him. 

Who can estimate this ? Who can guess how much firm- 
ness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman ? how 
much tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure 
sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore 
drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or 
stain ? how much industry and providence and affection we 
have caught from the pantomime of brutes ? What a 
searching preacher of self-command is the varying phe- 
nomenon of Health ! 



166 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



EACH AND ALL. 



Little thinks, in the fiekl, yon red-cloaked clown 

Of thee from the hill-top looking down ; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 

Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 

All are needed by each one ; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven. 

Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 

I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; 

He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 

For I did not bring home the river and sky ; — 

He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 

The bubbles of the latest wave 

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 

Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore 

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 

The lover watched his graceful maid. 

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed. 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage. 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage : — 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 167 

The gay encliantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

Then I said, " I covet truth ; 

Beau.ty is unripe chiklhood's cheat ; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth " : — 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Eunning over the club-moss burrs ; 

I inhaled the violet's breath ; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground ; 

Over me soared the eternal sky, 

Full of light and of deity ; 

Again I saw, again I heard. 

The rolling river, the morning bird : — 

Beauty through my senses stole ; 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 

Thanks to the morning light. 

Thanks to the foaming sea. 
To the uplands of New Hampshire, 

To the green-haired forest-tree ; 
Thanks to each man of courage. 

To the maids of holy mind, 
To the boy with his games undaunted 

Who never looks behind. 

Cities of proud hotels, 

Houses of rich and great, 
Vice nestles in your chambers. 

Beneath your roofs of slate. 
It cannot conquer folly, — 

Time-and-space-conquering steam, — 



168 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And the light-out-speediug telegraph 
Bears nothing on its beam. 

The politics are base ; 

The letters do not cheer ; 
And 'tis far in the deeps of history, 

The voice that speaketh clear. 
Trade and the streets ensnare us, 

Our bodies are weak and worn ; 
We plot and corrupt each other. 

And we despoil the unborn. 

Yet there in the parlor sits 

Some figure of noble guise, — 
Our angel, in a stranger's form. 

Or woman's pleading eyes ; 
Or only a flashing sunbeam 

In at the window-pane ; 
Or music pours on mortals 

Its beautiful disdain. 

The inevitable morning 

Finds them who in cellars be ; 
And be sure the all-loving Nature 

Will smile in a factory. 
Yon ridge of purple landscape. 

Yon sky between the walls. 
Hold all the hidden wonders 

In scanty intervals. 

Alas ! the Sprite that haunts us 

Deceives our rash desire ; 
It whispers of the glorious gods, 

And leaves us in the mire. 
We cannot learn the cipher 

That's writ upon our cell ; 
Stars taunt us by a mystery 

Which we could never spell. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 169 

If but one hero knew it, 

The world would blush in flame ; 
The sage, till he hit the secret, 

Would hang his head for shame. 
Our brothers have not read it, 

Not one has found the key ; 
And henceforth we are comforted,— 

We are but such as they. 

Still, still the secret presses ; 

The nearing clouds draw down ; 
The crimson morning flames into 

The fopperies of the town. 
Within, without the idle earth. 

Stars weave eternal rings ; 
The sun himself shines heartily, 

And shares the joy he brings. 

And what if Trade sow cities 

Like shells along the shore, 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad 

With railways ironed o'er ? — 
They are but sailing foam-bells 

Along Thought's causing stream. 
And take their shape and sun-color 

From him that sends the dream. 

For Destiny never swerves. 

Nor yields to men the helm ; 
He shoots his thought, by hidden nerves, 

Throughout the solid realm. 
The patient Daemon sits. 

With roses and a shroud; 
He has his way, and deals his gifts,— 

But ours is not allowed. 



170 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

He is no churl nor trifler, 

And his viceroy is none, — 
Love without weakness, — 

Of Genuis sire and son. 
And his will is not thwarted ; 

The seeds of land and sea 
Are the atoms of his body bright, 

And his behest obey. 

He serveth the servant, 

The brave he loves amain ; 
He kills the cripple and the sick, 

And straight begins again ; 
For gods delight in gods, 

And thrust the weak aside ; 
To him who scorns iheir charities, 

Their arms fly open wide. 

When the old world is sterile 

And the ages are effete, 
He will from wrecks and sediment 

The fairer world complete. 
He forbids to despair ; 

His cheeks mantle with mirth ; 
And the unimagined good of men 

Is yearning at the birth. 

Spring still makes spring in the mind 

When sixty years are told ; 
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, 

And we are never old. 
Over the winter glaciers 

I see the summer glow, 
And through the wild-piled snow-drift. 

The warm rosebuds below. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 171 



FORERUNNERS. 

Long I followed happy guides, 

I could never reach their sides ; 

Their step is forth, and, ere the day 

Breaks up their leaguer, and away. 

Keen my sense, my heart was young, 

Right good-will my sinews strung. 

But no speed of mine avails 

To hunt upon their shining trails. 

On and away, their hasting feet 

Make the morning proud and sweet ; 

Flowers they strew, — I catch the scent ; 

Or tone of silver instrument 

Leaves on the wind melodious trace ; 

Yet I could never see their face. 

On eastern hills I see their smokes. 

Mixed with mist by distant locks. 

I met many travellers 

Who the road had surely kept ; 

They saw not my fine revellers, — 

These had crossed them while they slept. 

Some had heard their fair report. 

In the county or the court. 

Fleetest couriers alive 

Never yet could once arrive. 

As they went or they returned. 

At the house where these sojourned. 

Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, 

Though they are not overtaken; 

In sleep their jubilant troop is near, — 

I tuneful voices overhear ; 

It may be in wood or waste, — 

At unawares 'tis come and past. 

Their near camp my spirit knows 

By signs gracious as rainbows. 



172 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

I thenceforward and long after 
Listen for their harp-like laughter, 
And carry in my heart for days 
Peace that hallows rudest Avays. 



CONCORD HYMN. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to Aj^ril's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream. 

We set to-day a votive stone ; 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



TWO RIVERS. 

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, 

Repeats the music of the rain ; 

But sweeter rivers pulsing flit 

Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 173 

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent : 
The stream I love unbounded goes 
Through flood and sea and firmament ; 
Through light, through life, it forward flows. 

I see the inundation sweet, 

I hear the spending of the stream 

Through years, through men, through nature fleet, 

Through love and thought, through power and dream. 

Musketaquit, a goblin strong, 
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay ; 
They lose their grief who hear his song. 
And where he winds is the day of day. 

So forth and brighter fares my stream, — 
Who drink it shall not thirst again ; 
No darkness stains its equal gleam, 
And ages drop in it like rain. 



174 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Cfjarlrs JFmno f^offman. 

[b. New York, New York, 1806. d. June 7, 1884. j 
THE BOB-O-LINKUM. 

Thou vocal sprite — thou feather'd troubadour ! 

In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger, 
Coms't thou to doff thy russet suit once more, 

And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger ? 
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature, 

But wise, as all of us, perforce, must think 'em. 
The school-boy best hath fix'd thy nomenclature, 

And poets, too, must call thee Bob-0-Linkum. 

Say ! art thou, long mid forest glooms benighted. 

So glad to skim our laughing meadows over — 
With our gay orchards here so much delighted, 

It makes thee musical, thou airy rover ? 
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer'd treasure 

Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn'd to ravish 
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure, 

And Ariel-like, again on men to lavish ? 

They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks 

Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges ; 
And even in a brace of wandering weeks, 

They say, alike thy song and plumage changes : 
Here both are gay ; and when the buds put forth, 

And leafy June is shading rock and river, 
Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North, 

While through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver. 



CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. 175 

Joyous, yet tender — was that gvish of song 

Caught from the brooks, where mid its wild flowers smiling 
The silent prairie listens all day long. 

The only captive to such sweet beguiling ; 
Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls 

And column'd isles of western groves symphonious, 
Learn from the tuneful woods rare madrigals, 

To make our flowering pastures here harmonious ? 

Caught'st thou thy carol from Ottawa maid, 

Where through the liquid fields of wild rice plashing 
Brushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, 

Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing ? 
Or did the reeds of some Savannah South, 

Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, 
To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth. 

The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing ? 

Unthrifty prodigal ! is no thought of ill 

Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever ? 
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still 

Throb on in music till at rest for ever ? 
Yet now in wilder'd maze of concord floating, 

'Twould seem that glorious hymning to prolong, 
Old Time in hearing thee might fall a-doating 

And pause to listen to thy rapturous song ! 



TO AN AUTUMN ROSE. 

Tell her I love her — love her for those eyes 
Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth, 

Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies, 
Eeveal two heavens here to us on earth — 

The one in which their soulful beauty lies. 
And that Avherein such soulfulness has birth : 



176 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Go to my lady ere the season flies, 

And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blast — 
Go ! and with all of eloquence thou hast. 

The burning story of my love discover, 
And if the theme should fail, alas ! to move her, 

Tell her when youth's gay budding-time is past, 
And summer's gaudy flowering is over, 

Like thee, my love will blossom to the last ! 



HENR Y WADS WOR TH L ONGFELL OW. 177 



Ifttrjj SEatisbJort!) lEongfrllobj. 

[b. Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807. d. March 24, 1882.] 
FOOTPRINTS OF ANGELS. 

And now the sun was growing high and warm. A little 
chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming 
to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He 
went in. There was no one there. The walls Hyperion, 
were covered with paintings and sculpture of the 
rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. There was 
nothing there to move the heart to devotion ; but in that 
hour the heart of Flemming was weak, — weak as a child's. 
He bowed his stubborn knees, and wept. And, 0, how 
many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, 
how much of wounded pride and unrequited love, were in 
those tears through which he read, on a marble tablet in 
the chapel wall opposite, this singular inscription : — 

" Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back. 
Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to 
meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly 
heart." 

It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of that grave 
had oj)ened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words 
of consolation which his soul needed, and which no friend 
had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts 
was still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his 
heart ; death Avas no longer there, but an angel clothed in 
white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared 
with tears ; and, looking into the bright morning heaven, 
he said : — 

" I will be strong ! " 

Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful long- 



1 < b AMERICAN LITER A TURE. 

ings to behold once more the faces of their departed friends ; 
and as they gaze tipon them, lying there so peacefully with 
the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of 
heaven touches them, and the features crumble and fall 
together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend 
for the last time into the great tomb of the Past, with pain- 
fid longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he 
had loved ; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, 
and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished 
as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sounding, 
he heard the great gate of the Past shut behind him, as the 
divine poet did the gate of Paradise, when the angel pointed 
him the way up the Holy Mountain; and to him likewise 
was it forbidden to look back. 

In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of 
feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if 
some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the 
dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity 
succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sud- 
den changes may have been long at work within us ; but 
the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently 
without sufficient cause. It was so with Plemming; and 
from that hour forth he resolved that he would no longer 
veer with every shifting wind of circumstance, — no longer 
be a childis plaything in the hands of Pate, which we our- 
selves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to 
lean on others ; but to walk self-confident and self-pos- 
sessed, — no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor 
wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet 
desires ; but to live in the Present wisely, alike forgetful 
of the Past, and careless of what the mysterious Future 
might bring. And from that moment he was calm and 
strong; he was reconciled with himself. His thoughts 
turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An indescriba- 
ble sweet feeling rose within him. 

"Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he, 
"and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer among 



HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 179 

shadows. Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality ! 
I will work in my own sphere, nor wish it other than it is. 
This alone is health and happiness." 



THE ARROW AND THE SONG. 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song? 

Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke ; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 



THE BRIDGE. 

I stood on the bridge at midnight, 
As the clocks were striking the hour, 

And the moon rose o'er the city 
Behind the dark church-tower. 

I saw her bright reflection 

In the waters under me, 
Like a golden goblet falling 

And sinking into the sea. 



180 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And far in the hazy distance 
Of that lovely night in June, 

The blaze of the flaming furnace 
Gleamed redder than the moon. 

Among the long, black rafters 

The wavering shadows lay, 
And the current that came from the ocean 

Seemed to lift and bear them away ; 

As, sweeping and eddying through them, 

Eose the belated tide. 
And, streaming into the moonlight, 

The sea-weed floated wide. 

And like those waters rushing 

Among the wooden piers, 
A flood of thoughts came o'er me 

That filled my eyes with tears. 

How often, how often, 
In the days that had gone by, 

I had stood on that bridge at midnight. 
And gazed on that wave and sky ! 

How often, how often, 

I had wished that the ebbing tide 

Would bear me away on its bosom 
O'er the ocean wild and wide ! 

For my heart was hot and restless, 
And my life was full of care. 

And the burden laid upon me 

Seemed greater than I could bear. 

But now it has fallen from me. 

It is buried in the sea ; 
And only the sorrow of others 

Throws its shadow over me. 



HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 181 

Yet whenever I cross the river 

On its bridge with wooden piers, 
Like the odor of brine from the ocean 

Conies the thought of other years. 

And I think how many thousands 

Of care-encumbered men, 
Each bearing his burden of sorrow, 

Have crossed the bridge since then. 

I see the long procession 

Still passing to and fro. 
The young heart hot and restless, 

And the old subdued and slow ! 

And forever and forever. 

As long as the river flows, 
As long as the heart has passions, 

As long as life has woes ; 

The moon and its broken reflection 

And its shadows shall appear. 
As the symbol of love in heaven. 

And its wavering image here. 



SUNSET. 

[From " Evangeline."] 

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon 
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the land- 
scape ; 
Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled 

together. 
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, 
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless 
water. 



182 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. 
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling 
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 

around her. 
Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest 

of singers. 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water. 
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, 
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed 

silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring to 

madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bac- 
chantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in 

derision. 
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the 

branches. 

LAUNCHING THE SHIP. 

Then the Master, 

With a gesture of command, 

Waved his hand ; 

And at the word. 

Loud and sudden there was heard, 

All around them and below. 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow. 

Knocking away the shores and spurs. 

And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 

The thrill of life along her keel, 

And, spurning with her foot the ground. 

With one exulting, joyous bound, 

She leaps into the Ocean's arms ! 



HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 183 

And lo ! from the assembled crowd 

There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 

That to the Ocean seemed to say, 

" Take her, bridegroom, old and gray. 

Take her to thy protecting arms, 

With all her youth and all her charms ! " 

How beautiful she is ! How fair 

She lies within those arms that press 

Her form with many a soft caress 

Of tenderness and watchful care ! 

Sail forth into the sea, ship ! 

Through wind and wave, right onward steer ! 

The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 

Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

Sail forth into the sea of life, 
0, gentle, loving, trusting wife. 
And safe from all adversity 
Upon the bosom of that sea 
Thy comings and thy goings be ! 
For gentleness and love and trust 
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ; 
And in the wreck of noble lives 
Something immortal still survives ! 

Thou, too, sail on, Ship of State ! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel. 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel. 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope. 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 



184 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 

'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 



HIAWATHA'S WOOING. 

She was thinking of a hunter. 
From another tribe and country, 
Young and tall and very handsome, 
Who one morning, in the spring-time. 
Came to buy her father's arrows. 
Sat and rested in the wigwam, 
Lingered long about the doorway, 
Looking back as he departed. 
She had heard her father praise him. 
Praise his courage and his wisdom; 
Would he come again for arrows 
To the Falls of Minnehaha ? 
On the mat her hands lay idle. 
And her eyes were very dreamy. 

Through their thoughts they heard a footstep, 
Heard a rustling in the branches. 
And with glowing cheek and forehead. 
With the deer upon his shoulders, 
Suddenly from out the woodlands 
Hiawatha stood before them. 



HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 185 

Straight the ancient arrow-maker 
Looked up gravely from his labor, 
Laid aside the unfinished arrow, 
Bade him enter at the doorway, 
Saying, as he rose to meet him, 
" Hiawatha, you are welcome ! " 

At the feet of Laughing Water 
Hiawatha laid his burden. 
Threw the red deer from his shoulders ; 
And the maiden looked up at him, 
Looked up from her mat of rushes. 
Said with gentle look and accent, 
" You are welcome, Hiawatha ! " 

Very spacious was the wigwam, 
Made of deer-skin dressed and whitened, 
With the gods of the Dacotahs 
Drawn and painted on its curtains. 
And so tall the doorway, hardly 
Hiawatha stooped to enter, 
Hardly touched his eagle feathers 
As he entered at the doorway. 

Then uprose the Laughing Water, 
From the ground fair Minnehaha, 
Laid aside her mat unfinished. 
Brought forth food and set before them. 
Water brought them from the brooklet. 
Gave them food in earthen vessels. 
Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood. 
Listened while the guest was speaking. 
Listened while her father answered. 
But not once her lips she opened, 
Not a single word she uttered. 

Yes, as in a dream she listened 
To the words of Hiawatha, 
As he talked of old Nokomis, 
Who had nursed him in his childhood. 



186 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

As lie told of his companions, 

Cliibiabos, tlie musician, 

And the very strong man, Kwasind, 

And of happiness and j)lenty 

In the land of the Ojibways, 

In the pleasant land and peaceful. 

" After many years of warfare, 
Many years of strife and bloodshed. 
There is peace between the Ojibways 
And the tribe of the Dacotahs." 
Thus continued Hiawatha, 
And then added, speaking slowly, 

^' That this peace may last forever. 
And our hands be clasped more closely. 
And our hearts be more united, 
Give me as my wife this maiden, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Loveliest of Dacotah women ! " 

And the ancient arrow-maker 
Paused a moment ere he answered, 
Smoked a little while in silence, 
Looked at Hiawatha proudly, 
Fondly looked at Laughing Water, 
And made answer very gravely : 

" Yes, if Minnehaha wishes ; 
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha ! " 

And the lovely Laughing Water 
Seemed more lovely, as she stood there, 
Neither willing nor reluctant. 
As she went to Hiawatha, 
Softly took the seat beside him, 
While she said, and blushed to say it, 

" I will follow you, my husband ! " 

This was Hiawatha's wooing! 
Thus it was he won the daughter 
Of the ancient arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs ! 



t:Y WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 187 



NATURE. 

As a fond mothf^r, when the day is o'er, 

Leads by tht- hand her little child to bed, 

Half willing, half reluctant to be led, 
And leave his Inoken playthings on the floor, 
Still gazing at them through the open door, 
Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead, 
Which, though riore splendid, may not please him more : 
So N"atuTe deals with us, and takes away 

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand 

Leads us to rest so gently, that we go 
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, 

"Being too full of sleep to understand 

How far the unknown transcends the what we know. 



188 AMERICAN LITERATUhE. 



[b. Westhampton, Massachusetts, July 23, 1813. c January 26, IS.ia.l 

A MIDWINTER WALl 

Chili ON demanded attention ; his foot pained him ; it 
grew swollen and inflamed. Margaret bathed and poulticed 
it, she held it in her lap and soothed it with her 
Margaret, hand. A preparation of the Widow's was sug- 
gested. Hash would not go for it, Pluck and 
his wife could not, and Margaret must go. Bull could 
not go with her and she must go alone. She was equipped 
with a warm hood, martin-skin tippet, ami a pair of stiow- 
shoes. She mounted the high, white, flufi'y plain, and went 
on with a soft, yielding, yet light step, aliuost as noiseless 
as if she were walking the clouds. There was no guide 
but the trees ; ditches by the way-side, knolls, stones, were 
all a uniform level. She saw a slightly raised mound, indi- 
cating a large rock she clambered over in summer. lUack 
spikes and seed-heads or dead golden-rods and muJeins 
dotted the way. Here was a grape-vine that seemed to 
have had a skirmish with the storm and both to have con- 
quered, for the vine was crushed, and the snow lay in tat- 
ters upon it. About the trunk of some of the largo trees 
was a hollow pit reaching quite to the ground, whi're the 
snow had waltzed round and round till it grew tired, and 
left. Wherever there was a fence, thither had tho storm 
betaken itself, and planted alongside mountain-like embank- 
ments, impenetrable dikes, and inaccessible bluffs. 

Entering thicker woods Margaret saw tbe deep, unalloy. 1 
beauty of the season; the large moist flak.-s that fell in tin; 
morning had furred and mossed every lim l> and twig, each 
minute process and filament, each aglet and threr;-' "^ ^^ 



SYLVESTER JUDD. 189 

the pure spirits of the air had undertaken to frost the trees 
for the marriage festival of their Prince. The slender 
white birches, with silver bark and ebon boughs, that grew 
along the path, were bent over ; their arms met intertwin- 
ingly; and thus was formed a perfect arch, voluptuous, 
dream-like, glittering, under which she went. All was 
silent as the moon ; there was no sound of birds, or cows, 
sheep, dinner-horns, axes, or wind. There was no life, but 
only this white, shining, still-life wrought in boreal ivory. 
No life ? From the dusky woods darted out those birds 
that bide a New England winter ; dove-colored nuthatches 
quank-quanked among the hemlocks ; a whole troop of tit- 
mice and woodpeckers came bustling and whirring across 
the way, shaking a shower of fine tiny raylets of snow on 
the child's head ; she saw the graceful snowbirds, our com- 
mon bird, with ivory bill, slate-colored back, and white 
breast, perched on the top of the mulleins and picking out 
the seeds. Above all, far above the forest and the snow- 
capped hills, caw-cawed the great black crow. All at once, 
too, darted up from the middle of a snow drift by the side of 
the road, a little red squirrel, who sat bolt upright on his 
hind legs, gravely folded his paws and surveyed her for a 
moment, as much as to say, " How do you do ? " then in a 
trice, with a squeak, he dove back into his hole. . . . 

When Margaret left for home the sun had gone down, 
and the moon rose full, to run its high circuit in these win- 
ter heavens. The snow that had melted on the trees during 
the day, as the cool air of evening came on descended in 
long wavy icicles from the branches, and the woods in their 
entire perspective were tricked with these pendants. It 
was magic land to the child, almost as beautiful as her 
dream, and she looked for welcome faces up among the glit- 
tering trees, and far off in the white clouds. It was still 
as her dream, too, and her own voice as she went singing 
along, echoing in the dark forest, was all she could hear. 
The moon tinged the icicles with a bright silver lustre, and 
the same pure radiancy was reflected from the snow. Anon 



190 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

she fell into the shade of the moon on her left ; while at 
her right, through the dark boughs of the evergreens, she 
saw the planet Venus, large and brilliant, just setting on 
the verge of the horizon in the impearled pathway of the 
sun. She thought of her other dream at the still, of Beauty, 
fair sister of three fair sisters, and she might have gone off 
in waking dreams among the fantasies of real existence, 
when she was drawn back by the recollection of her brother, 
to whose assistance she hastened. It was very cold, her 
breath showed like smoke in the clear atmosphere, and the 
dew from her mouth froze on her tippet. All at once there 
was a glare of red light about her ; the silver icicles were 
transformed to rubies, and the snow-fields seemed to bloom 
with glowing sorrel flowers. It was the Northern Lights 
that shot up their shafts, snapped their sheets, unfurled 
their flaming pennons, and poured their rich crimson dyes 
upon the enamelled earth. She thought the winter and 
the world were beautiful, her way became more bright, and 
she hurried on to Chilion, for whom, day by day, hour by 
hour, she labored and watched, assiduously, tenderly; till 
his foot mended apace, though it never got entirely well. 



WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 191 



SEilUam 0ilmorc .Simms:* 

[b. Charleston, South Carolina, April 17, 1806. d. June 11, 1870.] 
A SUDDEN HURRICANE. 

The evening, which had been beautiful before, had under- 
gone a change. The moon was obscured, and gigantic 
shadows, dense and winged, hurried with deep- 
toned cries along the heavens, as if in angry pur- p ° . 
suit. Occasionally, in sudden gusts, the winds 
moaned heavily among the pines ; a cooling freshness im- 
pregnated the atmosphere, and repeated flashes of sharpest 
lightning imparted to the prospect a splendor which illumi- 
nated, while increasing the perils of that path which our 
adventurers were now pursuing. Large drops, at moments, 
fell from the driving clouds, and everything promised the 
coming on of one of those sudden and severe thunder- 
storms, so common to the early summer of the South. 

Singleton looked up anxiously at the wild confusion of 
sky and forest around him. The woods seemed to appre- 
hend the danger, and the melancholy sighing of their 
branches appeared to indicate an instinctive consciousness, 
which had its moral likeness to the feeling in the bosom of 
the observer. How many of these mighty pines were to 
be prostrated under that approaching tempest ! how many 
beautiful vines, which had clung to them like affections 
that only desire an object to fasten upon, would share in 
their ruin ! How could Singleton overlook the analogy 
between the fortune of his family and friends, and that 
which his imagination depicted as the probable destiny of 
the forest ? 

"We shall have it before long, Humphries, for you see the 
black horns yonder in the break before us. I begin to feel 



192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the warm breath of the hurricane already, and we must look 
out for some smaller woods. I like not these high pines 
in a storm like this, so use your memory, man, and lead on 
to some thicket of scrubby oaks — if you can think of one 
near at hand. Ha ! — we must speed — we have lingered 
too long. Why did you not hurry me ? You should have 
known how difficult it was for me to hurry myself in such 
a situation." 

This was spoken by Singleton, at moments when the 
gusts permitted him to be heard, and when the irregularity 
of the route suffered his companion to keep beside him. 
The lieutenant answered promptly : — 

" That was the very reason why I did not wish to hurry 
you, major. I knew you hadn't seen your folks for a mighty 
long spell, and so I couldn't find it in my heart to break in 
upon you, though I felt dub'ous that the storm would be 
soon upon us." 

"A bad reason for a soldier. Friends and family are 
scarcely desirable at such a time as this, since we can sel- 
dom see them, or only see their suffering. Ha ! — that was 
sharp ! " 

" Yes, sir, but at some distance. We are coming to the 
stunted oaks now, which are rather squat, and not so likely 
to give as the pines. There ain't so much of 'em, you see. 
Keep a look out, sir, or the branches will pull you from 
your horse. The road here is pretty much overgroAvn, and 
the vines crowd thick upon it." 

" A Avord in season ! " exclaimed Singleton, as he drew 
back before an overhanging branch which had been bent by 
the wind, and was thrust entirely across his path. A few 
moments were spent in rounding the obstruction, and the 
storm grew heavier ; the winds no longer labored among 
the trees, but rushed along with a force which flattened 
their elastic tops, so that it either swept clean through tliem 
or laid them prostrate forever. A stronger hold, a positive 
straining in their effort, became necessary now, with both 
riders, in order to secure themselves firmly in their saddles ; 



WILLIAM GILMOIiE SIMMS. 193 

while their horses, with uplifted ears, and an occasional 
snort, in this manner, not less than by the shiver of their 
whole frames, betrayed their own apprehensions, and, as it 
were, appealed to their masters for protection. 

" The dumb beast knows where to look, after all, major ; 
he knows that man is most able, you see, to take care of 
him, though man wants his keeper too. But the beast don't 
know that. He's like the good soldier that minds his own 
captain, and looks to him only, though the captain himself 
has a general from whom he gets his orders. Now, say 
what you will, major, there's reason in the horse — the good 
horse, I mean, for some horses that I've straddled in my 
time have shown themselves mighty foolish and unreason- 
able." 

Humphries stroked the neck of his steed fondly, and 
coaxed him by an affectionate word, as he uttered himself- 
thus, with no very profound philosophy. He seemed desir- 
ous of assuring the steed that he held him of the better 
class, and favored him accordingly. Singleton assented to 
the notion of his companion, who did not, however, see the 
smile which accompanied his answer. 

"Yes, yes, Humphries, the horse knows his master, and 
is the least able or willing of all animals to do without him. 
I would we had our nags in safety now : I would these five 
miles were well over." 

" It's a tough ride ; but that's so much the better, major, 
the less apt we are to be troubled with the tories." 

"■ I should rather plunge through a crowd of them, now, 
in a. charge against superior cavalry, than take it in such a 
night as this, when the wind lifts you, at every bound, half 
out of your saddle, and, but for the lightning, which comes 
quite too nigh to be at all times pleasant, your face would 
make momentary acquaintance with boughs and branches, 
vines and thorns, that give no notice and leave their mark 
at every brush. A charge were far less difficult." 

"Almost as safe, sir, that's certain, and not more unpleas- 
ant. But let us hold up, major, for a while, and push for 



194 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the thicket. We shall now have the worst of the hurricane. 
See the edge of it yonder — how black ! and now — only 
hear the roaring ! " 

" Yes, it comes. I feel it on my cheek. It sends a breath 
like fire before it, sultry and thick, as if it had been sweep- 
ing all day over beds of the hottest sand. Lead the way, 
Humphries." 

"Here, sir, — follow close and quick. There's a clump 
of forest, with nothing but small trees, lying to the left — 
now, sir, that flash will show it to you — there we can be 
snug till the storm passes over. It has a long body and it 
shakes mightily, but it goes too fast to stay long in its jour- 
ney, and a few minutes, sir — a few minutes is all we want. 
Mind the vine there, sir ; and there, to your left, is a gully, 
where an old tree's roots have come up. Now, major, the 
sooner we dismount and squat with our horses the better." 

They had now reached the spot to which Humphries had 
directed his course — a thick undergrowth of small timber — 
of field pine, the stunted oak, black-jack, and hickory — few 
of sufficient size to feel the force of the tempest, or prove 
very conspicuous conductors of the lightning. Obeying the 
suggestion and following the example of his companion. 
Singleton dismounted, and the two placed themselves and 
their horses as much upon the sheltered side of the clump 
as possible, yet sufficiently far to escape any danger from 
its overthrow. 

Here they awaited the coming of the tempest. The 
experienced woodman alone could have spoken for its ap- 
proach. A moment's pause had intervened, when the sud- 
denly aroused elements seemed as suddenly to have sunk 
into grim repose. A slight sighing of the wind only, as it 
wound sluggishly along the distant wood, had its warning, 
and the dense blackness of the embodied storm was only 
evident at moments when the occasional rush of the light- 
ning made visible its gloomy terrors. 

"It's making ready for a charge, major: it's just like a 
good captain, sir, that calls in his scouts and sentries, and 



WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 195 

orders all things to keep quiet, and Avitliout beat of drum 
gets all fixed to spring (Jut from the bush upon them that's 
coming. It won't be long now, sir, before we get it ; but 
just now it's still as the grave. It's waiting for its out- 
riders — them long streaky white clouds it sent out an hour 
ago, like so many scouts. They're a-coming up now, and 
when they all get up together — then look out for the squall. 
Quiet now, Mossf oot — quiet now, creature — don't be fright- 
ened — it's not a-going to hurt you, old fellow — not a bit." 

Humphries patted his favorite while speaking, and strove 
to soothe and quiet the impatience which both horses ex- 
hibited. This was in that strange pause of the storm which 
is its most remarkable feature in the South — that singular 
interregnum of the winds, when, after giving repeated notice 
of their most terrific action, they seem almost to forget their 
purpose, and for a few moments appear to slumber in their 
inactivity. 

But the pause was only momentary, and was now at an 
end. In another instant, they heard the rush and the roar, 
as of a thousand wild steeds of the desert ploughing the 
sands ; then followed the mournful howling of the trees — 
the shrieking of the lashed winds, as if, under the influence 
of some fierce demon who enjoyed his triumph, they j)lunged 
through the forest, wailing at their own destructive prog- 
ress, yet compelled unswervingly to hurry forward. They 
twisted the pine from its place, snapping it as a reed, while 
its heavy fall to the ground which it had so long sheltered, 
called up, even amid the roar of the tempest, a thousand 
echoes from the forest. The branches of the wood were 
prostrated like so much heather, wrested and swept from 
the tree which yielded them without a struggle to the 
blast ; and the crouching horses and riders below were in 
an instant covered with a cloud of fragments. These were 
the precursors merely; then came the arrowy flight and 
form of the hurricane itself — its actual bulk — its em- 
bodied power, pressing along through the forest in a 
gyratory progress, not fifty yards wide, never distending in 



196 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

width, yet capriciously winding from right to left, and left 
to right, in a zigzag direction, as 'if a playful spirit thus 
strove to mix with all the terrors of destruction the spor- 
tive mood of the most idle fancy. In this progress, the 
whole wood in its path underwent prostration — the tall, 
proud pine, the deep-rooted and unbending oak, the small 
cedar and the pliant shrub, torn, dismembered of their fine 
proportions ; some, only by a timely yielding to the pres- 
sure, passed over with little injury, as if too much scorned 
by the assailant for his wrath. The larger trees in the 
neighborhood of the spot where our partisans had taken 
shelter, shared the harsher fortune generally, for they were 
in the very track of the tempest. Too sturdy and massive 
to yield, they withheld their homage, and were either 
snapped off relentlessly and short, or were torn and twisted 
up from their very roots. The poor horses, with eyes star- 
ing in the direction of the storm, with ears erect, and manes 
flying in the wind, stood trembling in every joint, too 
much terrified, or too conscious of their helplessness, to 
attempt to fly. All around the crouching party the woods 
for several seconds absolutely flattened. Huge trees were 
prostrated, and their branches were clustering thickly, and 
almost forming a prison around them ; leaving it doubtful, 
as the huge terror rolled over their heads, whether they 
could ever make their escape from the enclosure. Rush 
after rush of the trooping winds went over them, keeping 
them immovable in their crowded shelter and position — 
each, succeeding troop wilder and weightier than the last, 
until at length a sullen, bellowing murmur, which before 
they had not heard, announced the greater weight of the 
hurricane to be overthrowing the forests in the distance. 

The chief danger had overblown. Gradually the warm, 
oppressive breath passed off ; the air again grew suddenly 
cool, and a gush of heavy drops came falling from the 
heavens, as if they too had been just released from the 
intolerable pressure which had burdened earth. Moaning 
pitifully, the prostrated trees and shrubs, those which had 



WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 197 

survived the storm, though shorn by its scythes, gradually 
and seemingly with painful effort, once more elevated them- 
selves to their old position. Their sighings, as they did so, 
were almost human to the ears of our crouching warriors, 
whom their movement in part released. Far and near, the 
moaning of the forest around them was strangely, but not 
unpleasantly, heightened in its effect upon their senses, by 
the distant and declining roar of the past and far-travelling 
hurricane, as ploughing the deep woods and laying waste 
all in its progress, it rushed on to a meeting with the kin- 
dred storms that gather about the gloomy Cape Hatteras, 
and stir and foam along the waters of the Atlantic. 



THE LOST PLEIAD. 

Not in the sky, 

Where it was seen 

So long in eminence of light serene, — 

Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave. 

Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep, 

Though beautiful in green 

And crystal, its great caves of mystery, — 

Shall the bright watcher have 

Her place, and, as of old, high station keep ! 

Gone ! gone ! 

Oh ! never more, to cheer 

The mariner, who holds his course alone 

On the Atlantic, through the weary night, 

When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleej 

Shall it again appear. 

With the sweet-loving certainty of light, 

Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep ! 

The upward looking shepherd on the hills 
Of Chaldea, night returning, with his flocks, 



198 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze, 

Gladding his gaze, — 

And, from his dreary watch along the rocks, 

Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways ! 

How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze, 

Much wondering, while the drowsy silence fills 

The sorrowful vault ! — how lingers, in the hope that night 

May yet renew the expected and sweet light, 

So natural to his sight ! 

A.nd lone, 

Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone. 

Brood the once happy circle of bright stars : 

How should they dream, until her fate was known, 

That they were ever confiscate to death ? 

That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars. 

And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath. 

That they should fall from high, 

Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die, — 

All their concerted springs of harmony 

Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone ! 

Ah ! still the strain 

Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky : 
The sister stars, lamenting in their pain 
That one of the selectest ones must die, — 
Must vanish, Avhen most lovely, from the rest ! 
Alas ! 'tis ever thus the destiny. 
Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone 
Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone. 
The hope most precious is the soonest lost. 
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. 
Are not all short-lived things the loveliest ? 
And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky, 
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly 
From the lone sphere they blest ? 



THEODORE PARKER. 199 



Ei}cotiorc ^arfter* 

[b. Lexington, Massachusetts, August '34, 1810. d. May 10, I860.] 
DEGREES OF GREATNESS. 

In general, greatness is eminence of ability ; so there are 
as many different forms thereof as there are qualities 
wherein a man may be eminent. These various q^ ^-^^ 
forms of greatness should be distinctly marked, Death of 
that, when Ave say a man is great, we may know Daniel 
exactly what we mean. Webster. 

In the rudest ages, when the body is man's only tool for 
work or war, eminent strength of body is the thing most 
coveted. Then, and so long as human affairs are controlled 
by brute force, the giant is thought to be the great man, — 
is had in honor for his eminent brute strength. 

When men have a little outgrown that period of force, 
cunning is the quality most prized. The nimble brain out- 
wits the heavy arm, and brings the circumvented giant to 
the ground. He who can overreach his antagonist, plotting 
more subtly, winning with more deceitful skill ; who can 
turn and double on his unseen track, "can smile and smile, 
and be a villain," — he is the great man. 

Brute force is merely animal ; cunning is the animalism 
of the intellect, — ; the mind's least intellectual element. 

As men go on in their development, finding qualities 
more valuable than the strength of the lion or the subtlety 
of the fox, they come to value higher intellectual faculties, — 
great understanding, great imagination, great reason. Power 
to think is then the faculty men value most; ability to 
devise means for attaining ends desired ; the power to origi- 
nate ideas, to express them in speech, to organize them into 
institutions ; to organize things into a machine, men into an 



200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

army or a state, or a gang of operatives ; to administer these 
various organizations. He who is eminent in this ability is 
thought the great man. 

But there are qualities nobler than the mere intellect, 
— the moral, the affeetional, the religious faculties, — the 
power of justice, of love, of holiness, of trust in God, and 
of obedience to his law, — the eternal right. These are the 
highest qualities of man : whoso is most eminent therein is 
the greatest of great men. He is as much above the merely 
intellectual great men, as they above the men of mere cun- 
ning or force. 

Thus, then, we have four different kinds of greatness. 
Let me name them bodily greatness, crafty greatness, intel- 
lectual greatness, religious greatness. Men in different 
degrees of development will value the different kinds of 
greatness. Belial cannot yet honor Christ. How can the 
little girl appreciate Aristotle and Kant ? The child thinks 
as a child. You must have manhood in you to honor it in 
others, even to see it. 

Yet how we love to honor men eminent in such modes of 
greatness as we can understand ! Indeed, we must do so. 
Soon as we really see a real great man, his magnetism draws 
us, will we or no. Do any of you remember when, for the 
first time in adult years, you stood beside the ocean, or 
some great mountain of New Hampshire, or Virginia, or 
Pennsylvania, or the mighty mounts that rise in Switzer- 
land? Do you remember what emotions came upon you 
at the awful presence? But if you are confronted by a 
man of vast genius, of colossal history and achievements, 
immense personal power of wisdom, justice, philanthropy, 
religion, of mighty power of will and mighty act ; if you 
feel him as you feel the mountain and the sea, what grander 
emotions spring up ! It is like making the acquaintance of 
one of the elementary forces of the earth, — like associating 
with gravitation itself ! The stillest neck bends over ; down 
go the democratic knees ; human nature is loyal then ! 
A New-England shipmaster, wrecked on an island in the 



THEODORE PARKER. 201 

Indian Sea, was seized by his conquerors, and made their 
chief. Their captive became their king. After years of 
rule, he managed to escape. When he once more visited his 
former realm, he found that the savages had carried him to 
heaven, and worshipped him as a god greater than their 
fancied deities : he had revolutionized divinity, and was 
himself enthroned as a god. Why so? In intellectual 
qualities, in religious qualities, he was superior to their idea 
of God, and so they worshipped him. Thus loyal is human 
nature to its great men. 

Talk of Democracy ! — we are all looking for a master ; 
a man manlier than we. We are always looking for a great 
man to solve the difficulty too hard for us, to break the rock 
which lies in our way, — to represent the possibility of 
human nature as an ideal, and then to realize that ideal 
in his life. Little boys in the country, working against 
time, with stints to do, long for the passing-by of some tall 
brother, who in a few minutes shall achieve what the smaller 
boy took hours to do. And we are all of us but little boys, 
looking for some great brother to come and help us end our 
tasks. 

But it is not quite so easy to recognize the greatest kind 
of greatness. A Nootka-Sound Indian would not see much 
in Leibnitz, Newton, Socrates, or Dante ; and if a great man 
were to come as much before us as we are before the Nootka- 
Sounders, what should we say of him ? Why, the worst 
names we could devise. Blasphemer, Hypocrite, Infidel, 
Atheist. Perhaps we should dig up the old cross, and make 
a new martyr of the man posterity will worship as a deity. 
It is the men who are up that see the rising sun, not the- 
sluggards. It takes greatness to see greatness, and know it 
at the first ; I mean to see greatness of the highest kind. 
Bulk anybody can see ; bulk of body or mind. The loftiest 
form of greatness is never popular in its time. Men cannot 
understand or receive it. Guinea negroes would think a 
juggler a greater man than Franklin. What would be 
thought of Martin Luther at Kome, of Washington at St. 



202 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Petersburgh, of Fenelon among the Sacs and Foxes ? Herod 
and Pilate were popular in their day, — men of property 
and standing. They got nominations and honor enough, 
Jesus of Nazareth got no nomination, got a cross between 
two thieves, was crowned with thorns, and, when he died, 
eleven Galileans gathered together to lament their Lord. 
Any man can measure a walking-stick, — so many hands 
long, and so many nails beside; but it takes a mountain 
intellect to measure the Andes and Altai, 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 203 



P?enr2 ©aijiti Cljoreau* 

[b. Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817. d. May 6, 1862.] 
SOLITUDE. 

There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives 
in the midst of Nature, and has his senses still. There was 
never yet such a storm but it was J^olian music 
to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can Walden. 
rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vul- 
gar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons 
I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The 
gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the 
house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good for 
me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far 
more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long 
as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy 
the potatoes in the lowlands, it would still be good for the 
grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would 
be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with 
other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods 
than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if 
I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows 
have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do 
not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I 
have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a 
sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after 
I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the 
near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and 
healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But 
I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my 
mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of 
a gentle rain, while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly 



204 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

sensible of such sweet and beueficeut society in Nature, in 
the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and 
sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friend- 
liness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made 
the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignifi- 
cant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little 
pine-needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and be- 
friended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the pres- 
ence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we 
are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the 
nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor 
a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to 
me again. 



MORNING AIR. 

What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, con- 
tented? Not my or thy great-grandfather's, but our great- 
grandmother Nature's universal, vegetable, botanic 
Walden. medicines, by which she has kept herself young 
always, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, 
and fed her health with their decaying fatness. For 
my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials dipped 
from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which came out of those 
long, shallow, black, schooner-looking wagons which we 
sometimes see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught 
of undiluted morning air. Morning air ! If men will not 
drink of this at the fountain-head of the day, why, then, 
we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for 
the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket 
to morning time in this world. But remember, it will not 
keep quite till noon-day even in the coolest cellar, but drive 
out the stopples long ere that and follow westward the steps 
of Aurora. I am no worshipper of Hygiea, who was the 
daughter of that old herb-doctor ^sculapius, and who is 
represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand, 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 205 

and in the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes 
drinks ; but rather of Hebe, cup-bearer to Jupiter, who was 
the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had the 
power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth. 
She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, 
healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, 
and wherever she came it was spring. 



WALDEN POND. 

It is a soothing employment on one of those fine days in 
the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, 
to sit on a stump on such a height as this, over- 
looking the pond, and study the dimpling circles "Walden. 
which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise 
invisible surface amid the reflected skies and trees. Over 
this great expanse there is no distubance but it is thus 
at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as, when a 
vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the 
shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an 
insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling 
dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling 
up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heav- 
ing of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are 
undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the 
lake ! Again the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, 
every leaf and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles now at 
mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a spring morn- 
ing. Every motion of an oar or an insect produces a flash 
of light ; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo ! 

In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a per- 
fect forest mirror, set around with stones as precious to my 
eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at 
the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the sur- 
face of the earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations 
come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no 



206 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, 
whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no 
dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; — a mirror in which 
all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by 
the sun's hazy brush, — this the light dust-cloth, — which 
retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own 
to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in 
its bosom still. 



SPRING PROSPECTS. 

We talk about spring as at hand before the end of Feb- 
ruary, and yet it will be two good months, one-sixth part 
J, . of the whole year, before we can go a-Maying. 

Spring in There may be a whole month of solid and unin- 
Massachu- terrupted winter yet, plenty of ice, and good 
setts. sleighing. We may not even see the bare ground, 

and hardly the water ; and yet we sit down and warm our 
spirits annually with the distant prospect of spring. As if 
a man were to warm his hands by stretching them towards 
the rising sun, and rubbing them. We listen to the Feb- 
ruary cock-crowing and turkey-gobbling as to a first course 
or prelude. The bluebird, which some wood-chopper or 
inspired walker is said to have seen in that sunny interval 
between the snow-storms, is like a speck of clear blue sky 
seen near the end of a storm, reminding us of an ethereal 
region, and a heaven which we had forgotten. Princes and 
magistrates are often styled serene ; but what is their turbid 
serenity to that ethereal serenity which the bluebird em- 
bodies. His most serene Birdship ! His soft warble melts 
in the ear as the snow is melting in the valleys around. 
The bluebird comes, and with his warble drills the ice, and 
sets free the rivers and ponds and frozen ground. As the 
sand flows down the slopes a little way, assuming the forms 
of foliage when the frost comes out of the ground, so this 
little rill of melody flows a short way down the concave of 
the sky. 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 207 



INSPIRATION, 

If with light head erect I sing, 

Though all the muses lend their force, 

From my poor love of anything, 

The verse is weak and shallow as its source. 

But if with bended neck I grope. 

Listening behind me for my wit. 
With faith superior to hope, 

More anxious to keep back than forward it ; 

Making my soul accomplice there 

Unto the flame my heart hath lit. 
Then will the verse forever wear, — 

Time cannot bend the line which God has writ, 

I hearing get, who had but ears. 

And sight, who had but eyes before ; 

I moments live, who lived but years, 

And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore. 

Now chiefly is my natal hour. 

And only now my prime of life ; 
Of manhood's strength it is the flower, 

'Tis peace's end, and war's beginning strife. 

It comes in summer's broadest noon. 
By a gray wall, or some chance place, 

Unseasoning time, insulting June, 

And vexing day with its presuming face. 

I will not doubt the love untold 

Which not my worth nor want hath bought, 
Which woo'd me young, and woo'd me old, 

And to this evening hath me brought. 



208 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



^braf)am 1Ltncolu» 

[b. Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. d. April 15, 1865.] 
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. 

Fourscore aud seven years ago our fathers brought forth 
upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 

dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
°^®™ " created equal. Now we are engaged in a great 

civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come 
to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for 
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot conse- 
crate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor 
long remember, what we say here ; but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be 
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who 
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining be- 
fore us, that from these honored dead we take increased 
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, aud for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth. 



GEORGE BANCROFT. 209 



(Kforge Bancroft 

[b. Worcester, Massachusetts, October 3, 1800.] 
THE NEW ENGLAND PURITANS. 

There are some who love to enumerate the singularities 
of the early Puritans. They were opposed to wigs ; they 
could preach against veils ; they denounced long 
hair ; they disliked the cross in the banner, as History of 
much as the people of Paris disliked the lilies of g^ 
the Bourbons. They would not allow Christmas 
to be kept sacred ; they called neither months, nor days, nor 
seasons, nor churches, nor inns, by the names common in 
England ; they revived scripture names at christenings. 
The grave Komans legislated on the costume of men, and 
their senate could even stoop to interfere with the triumphs 
of the sex to which civic honors were denied ; the fathers 
of New England prohibited frivolous fashions in their own 
dress ; and their austerity, checking extravagance even in 
woman, frowned on her hoods of silk and her scarfs of 
tiffany, extended her sleeve to the wrist, and limited its 
greatest width to half an ell. The Puritans were formal and 
precise in their manners ; singular in the forms of their leg- 
islation. Every topic of the day found a place in their 
extemJ3oraneous prayers, and infused a stirring interest into 
their long and frequent sermons. The courts of Massachu- 
setts respected in practice the code of Moses ; in New Haven 
the members of the constituent committee were called the 
seven pillars, hewn out for the house of wisdom. But these 
are only forms, which gave to the new faith a marked exte- 
rior. If from the outside peculiarities we look to the genius 
of the sect itself, Puritanism had two cardinal principles : 
Faith in the absolute sovereignty of God, whose will is per- 



210 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

feet right ; and the Equality of all who believe that his will 
is to be done. 

It was Eeligion struggling in, with, and for the People ; 
a war against tyranny and superstition. " Its absurdities," 
says one of its scoffers, " were the shelter for the noble prin- 
ciples of liberty." It was its office to engraft the new insti- 
tutions of popular energy upon the old European system of 
a feudal aristocracy and popular servitude ; the good was 
permanent ; the outward emblems, which were the signs of 
the party, were of transient duration, like the clay and liga- 
ments which hold the graft in its place, and are brushed 
away as soon as the scion is firmly united. 

The principles of Puritanism proclaimed the civil mag- 
istrate subordinate to the authority of religion ; and its 
haughtiness in this respect has been compared to " the infat- 
uated arrogance " of a Eoman pontiff. In the firmness with 
Avhich their conviction was held, the Puritans did not yield 
to the Catholics ; and, if the will of God is the criterion of 
justice, both were, in one sense, in the right. The question 
arises. Who shall be the interpreter of that will ? In the 
Roman Catholic Church, the office was claimed by the infal- 
lible pontiff, who, as the self-constituted guardian of the 
oppressed, insisted on the power of dethroning kings, reveal- 
ing laws, and subverting dynasties. The principle thus 
asserted could not but become subservient to the temporal 
ambition of the clergy. Puritanism conceded no such power 
to its spiritual guides ; the church existed independent of its 
pastor, who owed his office to its free choice ; the will of 
the majority was its law; and each one of the brethren pos- 
sessed equal rights Avith the elders. The right, exercised 
by each congregation, of electing its OAvn ministers was in 
itself a moral revolution ; religion was now with the people, 
not over the people. Puritanism exalted the laity. Every 
individual who had experienced the raptures of devotion, 
every believer, who in moments of ecstacy had felt the 
assurance of the favor of God, was in his own eyes a con- 
secrated person, chosen to do the noblest and godliest deeds. 



GEORGE BANCROFT. 211 

For him the wonderful counsels of the Almighty had ap- 
pointed a Saviour ; for him the laws of nature had been 
suspended and controlled, the heavens had opened, earth had 
quaked, the sun had veiled his face, and Christ had died 
and had risen again; for him prophets and apostles had 
revealed to the world the oracles and the will of God. 
Before Heaven he prostrated himself in the dust ; looking 
out upon mankind, how could he but respect himself, whom 
God had chosen and redeemed ? He cherished hope ; he 
possessed faith; as he walked the earth, his heart was in 
the skies. Angels hovered round his path, charged to minis- 
ter to his soul ; spirits of darkness vainly leagued together 
to tempt him from his allegiance. His burning piety could 
use no liturgy ; his penitence revealed itself to no confessor. 
He knew no superior in holiness. He could as little become 
the slave of priestcraft as of a despot. He was himself a 
judge of the orthodoxy of the elders ; and, if he feared the 
invisible powers of the air, of darkness, and of hell, he 
feared nothing on earth. Puritanism constituted not the 
Christian clergy, but the Christian people, the interpreter of 
the divine will ; and the issue of Puritanism was popular 
sovereignty. . . . 

Of all contemporary sects, the Puritans were the most 
free from credulity, and, in their zeal for reform, pushed 
their regvilations to what some would consider a skeptical 
extreme. So many superstitions had been bundled up with 
every venerable institution of Europe that ages have not 
yet dislodged them all. The Puritans at once emancipated 
themselves from the thraldom to observances. They estab- 
lished a worship purely spiritual. They stood in prayer. 
To them the elements remained but wine and bread, and 
in communing they would not kneel. They invoked no 
saints ; they raised no altar ; they adored no crucifix ; they 
kissed no book ; they asked no absolution ; they paid no 
tithes ; they saw in the priest nothing more sacred than a 
man ; ordination was no more than an approbation of the 
officer, which might be expressed by the brethren just as 



212 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

well as by other ministers ; the church, as a place of wor- 
ship, was to them hut a meeting-hovise ; they dug no graves 
in consecrated earth ; unlike their posterity they married 
without a minister, and buried the dead without a prayer. 
Witchcraft had not been made the subject of skeptical con- 
sideration ; and in the years in which Scotland sacrificed 
hecatombs to the delusion, there were three victims in New 
England. Dark crimes, that seemed without a motive, may 
have been pursued under that name ; I find one record of a 
trial for witchcraft where the prisoner was proved a mur- 
deress. . . . 

Historians have loved to eulogize the manners and virtues, 
the glory and the benefits, of chivalry. Puritanism accom- 
plished for mankind far more. If it had the sectarian 
crime of intolerance, chivalry had the vices of dissoluteness. 
The knights were brave from gallantry of spirit ; the Puri- 
tans, from the fear of God. The knights obeyed the law of 
honor ; the Puritans hearkened to the voice of duty. The 
knights were proud of loyalty ; the Puritans, of liberty. 
The knights did homage to monarchs, in whose smile they 
beheld honor, whose rebuke was disgrace ; the Puritans, in 
their disdain of ceremony, would not bow at the name of 
Jesus, nor bend the knee to the King of kings. Chivalry 
delighted in outward show, favored pleasure, miiltiplied 
amusements, and degraded the human race by an exclusive 
respect for the privileged classes ; Puritanism bridled the 
passions, commanded the virtues of self-denial, and rescued 
the name of man from dishonor. The former valued cour- 
tesy ; the latter, justice. The former adorned society by 
graceful refinements ; the latter founded national grandeur 
on universal education. The institutions of chivalry were 
subverted by the gradually increasing weight and knowl- 
edge and opulence of the industrious classes ; the Puritans, 
rallying upon those classes, planted in their hearts the 
undying principles of democratic liberty. 



ALFRED BILLINGS STREET. 213 



^Ifretr Billings Street* 

[b. Poughkeepsie, New York, December 18, 1811. d. June 2, 1881.] 
A FOREST WALK. 

A LOVKLY sky, a cloudless sun, 

A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers 
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won, 

To the cool forest's shadowy bowers ; 
One of the paths all round that wind, 

Traced by the browsing herds, I choose 
And sights and sounds of human kind 

In nature's lone recesses lose ; 
The beech displays its marbled bark. 

The spruce its green tent stretches wide, 
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark, 

The maple's scallop'd dome beside : 
All weave on high a verdant roof, 
That keeps the very sun aloof, 
Making a twilight soft and green, 
Within the column' d, vaulted scene. 

Sweet forest odors have their birth 

From the clothed boughs and teeming earth : 

Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead. 
Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern, 
With many a wild flower's fairy urn, 

A thick, elastic carpet spread ; 
Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk. 
Resolving into soil, is sunk ; 
There wrench'd but lately from its throne, 

By some fierce whirlwind circling past. 
Its huge roots mass'd with earth and stone, 

One of the woodland kings is cast. 



214 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Above, the forest tops are bright, 
With the broad blaze of sunny light, 
But now a fitful air-gust parts 

The screening branches, and a glow 
Of dazzling, startling radiance darts 

Down the dark stems, and breaks below ; 
The mingled shadows off are roll'd. 
The sylvan floor is bathed in gold: 
Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen, 
Display their shades of brown and green : 
Tints brighten o'er the velvet moss, 
Gleams twinkle on the laurel's gloss 
The robin, brooding in her nest. 
Chirps as the quick ray strikes her breast ; 
And, as my shadow prints the ground, 
I see the rabbit upward bound, 
With pointed ears an instant look, 
Then scamper to the darkest nook. 
Where, with crouch'd limb, and staring eye, 
He watches while I saunter by. 

A narrow vista, carpeted 

With rich green grass, invites my tread ; 

Here showers the light in golden dots, 

There sleeps the shade in ebon spots, 

So blended, that the very air 

Seems network as I enter there ; 

The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum 

Afar has sounded on my ear, 
Ceases his beatings as I come, 

Whirrs to the sheltering branches near ; 
The little milk-snake glides away, 
The brindled marmot dives from day. 
And now, between the boughs, a space 
Of the blue laughing sky I trace ; 
On each side shrinks the bowery shade ; 
Before me spreads an emerald glade ; 



ALFRED BILLINGS STREET. 215 

The sunshine steeps its grass and moss, 
That couch my footsteps as I cross ; 
Merrily hums the tawny bee, 
The glittering humming-bird I see ; 
Floats the bright butterfly along, 
The insect choir is loud in song ; 
A spot of light and life it seems, 
A fairy haunt for fancy dreams. 

Here stretch'd, the pleasant turf I press, 
In luxury of idleness ; 
Sun-streaks and glancing wings, and sky, 
Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye, 
While murmuring grass, and waving trees 
Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze. 
And water tones that tinkle near. 
Blend their sweet music to my ear ; 
And by the changing shades alone 
The passage of the hours is known. 



216 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



[b. near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 20, 1820. d. February 12, 1871.] 
THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE HILL. 

Memory, be sweet to me, — 
Take, take all else at will, 

So thou but leave me safe and sound, 
Without a token my heart to wound, 
The little house on the hill. 

Take all of best from east to west. 

So thou but leave me still 
The chamber where, in the starry light, 

1 used to lie awake at night, 
And list to the whip-poor-will. 

Take violet-bed, and rose-tree red. 
And the purple flag by the mill. 
The meadow gay, and the garden-ground, 
But leave, oh, leave me safe and sound, 
The little house on the hill. 

The daisy lane, and the dove's low plain. 

And the cuckoo's tender bill. 
Take one and all, but leave the dreams 
That turned the rafters to golden beams, 

In the little house on the hill ! 

The gables brown, they have tumbled down, 

And dry is the brook by the mill ; 
The sheets I used with care to keep 
Have wrapt my dead for the last long sleep, 
In the valley, low and still. 



ALICE GARY. 217 

But, Memory, be sweet to me, 

And build the walls, at will, 
Of the chamber where I used to mark, 
So softly rippling over the dark. 

The song of the whip-poor-will ! 

Ah ! Memory, be sweet to me ! 

All other fountains chill ; 
But leave that song so weird and wild, 
Dear as its life to the heart of the child. 

In the little house on the hill ! 



WINTER AND SUMMER. 

The winter goes and the summer comes, 

And the cloud descends in warm, wet showers ; 

The grass grows green where the frost has been. 
And waste and wayside are fringed with flowers. 

The winter goes and the summer comes. 
And the merry bluebirds twitter and trill. 

And the swallow swings on his steel-blue wings. 
This way and that way, at wildest will. 

The winter goes and the summer comes, 
And the swallow he swingeth no more aloft, 

And the bluebird's breast swells out of her nest. 
And the horniest bill of them all grows soft. 

The summer goes and the winter comes. 
And the daisy dies, and the daffodil dies, 

And the softest bill grows horny and still, 
And the days set dimly, and dimly rise. 



218 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The summer goes and tlie winter comes, 

And the red fire fades from the heart o' th' rose, 

And the snow lies white where the grass was bright, 
And the wild wind bitterly blows and blows. 

The winter comes and the winter stays, 
Aye, cold and long, and long and cold. 

And the pulses beat to the weary feet, 

And the head feels sick, and the heart grows cold. 

The winter comes and the winter stays, 

And all the glory behind us lies, 
The cheery light drops into the night. 

And the snow drifts over our sightless eyes. 



PHCEBE CARY. 219 



[b. near Cincinnati, Oliio, September 24, 1824. d. July 31, 1871.] 
A PRAYER. 

I ASK not Avealth, but power to take 
And use the things I have aright, 

Not years, but wisdom that shall make 
My life a profit and delight. 

I ask not, that for me, the plan 

Of good and ill be set aside ; 
But that the common lot of man 

Be nobly borne and glorified. 

I know I may not always keexJ 

My steps in places green and sweet, 

Nor find the pathway of the deep 
A path of safety for my feet ; 

But pray, that when the tempest's breath 
Shall fiercely sweep my way about, 

I make not shipwreck of my faith 
In the unbottomed sea of doubt ; 

And that, though it be mine to know 
How hard the stoniest pillow seems, 

Good angels still may come and go. 
About the places of my dreams. 

I do not ask for love below, 

That friends shall never be estranged : 



220 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

But for the power of loving, so 

My heart may keep its youth unchanged- 
Youth, joy, wealth — Fate, I give thee these: 

Leave faith and hope till life is past ; 
And leave my heart's best impulses 
Fresh and unfailing to the last. 



MARCH CROCUSES. 

fickle and uncertain March ! 
How could you have the heart 

To make the tender crocuses 

From their beds untimely start ? 

Those foolish, unsuspecting flowers, 

Too credulous to see 
That the sweetest promises of March 

Are not May's certainty. 

When you smiled a few short hours ago, 
What said your whisper light. 

That made them lift their pretty heads 
So hopeful and so bright ? 

1 could not catch a single word, 
But I saw your light caress ; 

And heard your rough voice softened down 
To a lover's tenderness. 

cruel and perfidious month ! 

It makes me sick and sad. 
To think how yesterday your smile 

Made all the blossoms glad. 



PHCEBE CARY. 221 



trustful, unsuspecting flowers ! 

It breaks my heart to know 
That all your golden heads to-day 

Are underneath the snow. 



TRUE LOVE. 

I think true love is never blind, 
But rather brings an added light ; 

An inner vision, quick to find 

The beauties hid from common sight. 

No soul can ever clearly see 

Another's highest, noblest part ; 

Save through the sweet philosophy 
And loving wisdom of the heart. 

Your unanointed eyes shall fall 

On him who fills my world with light ; 

You do not see my friend at all. 

You see what hides him from your sight. 

I see the feet that fain would climb, 
You, but the steps that turn astray : 

I see the soul unharmed, sublime, 
You, but the garment and the clay. 

You see a mortal, weak, misled. 
Dwarfed ever by the earthly clod ; 

I see how manhood, perfected. 
May reach the stature of a god. 

Blinded I stood, as now you stand. 

Till on mine eyes, with touches sweet, 

Love, the deliverer, laid his hand. 
And, lo ! I worship at his feet ! 



222 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



[b. Providence, Rhode Island, February 6, 1820. d. October 31, 1872.] 
THE BURIAL OF THE DANE. 

Blue gulf all around us, 

Blue sky overhead — 
Muster all on the quarter, 

We must bury our dead ! 

It is but a Danish sailor, 

Eugged of front and form ; 
A common son of the forecastle, 

Grizzled with sun and storm. 

His name and the strand he hailed from 
We know, — and there's nothing more ! 

But perhaps his mother is waiting 
In the lonely Island of Fohr. 

Still, as he lay there dying, 

Eeason drifting a-wreck, 
" 'Tis my watch," he would mutter ; 

" I must go upon deck ! " 

Aye, on deck — by the foremast ! — 
But watch and lookout are done ; 

The Union-Jack laid o'er him, — 
How quiet he lies in the sun ! 

Slow the ponderous engine. 
Stay the hurrying shaft ! 



HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL. 223 

Let the roll of the ocean 

Cradle our giant craft — 
Gather around the grating, 

Carry your messmate aft ! 

Stand in order, and listen 

To the holiest page of prayer ! 
Let every foot be quiet, 

Every head be bare — 
The soft trade-wind is lifting 

A hundred locks of hair. 

Our captain reads the service 

(A little spray on his cheeks), 
The grand old words of burial. 

And the trust a true heart seeks — 
" We therefore commit his body 

To the deep," — and as he speaks, 

Launched from the weather-railing, 

Swift as the eye can mark. 
The ghastly shotted hammock 

Plunges, away from the shark, 
Down, a thousand fathoms, 

Down into the dark ! 

A thousand summers and winters 

The stormy Gulf shall roll 
High o'er his canvas coffin, — 

But, silence to doubt and dole ! 
There's a quiet harbor somewhere 

For the poor, a-Aveary soul. 

Free the fettered engine, 

Speed the tireless shaft ! 
Loose to'gallant and topsail, 

The breeze is fair abaft ! 



224 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Blue sea all around us, 

Blue sky bright o'erliead — 

Every man to his duty ! 
We have buried our dead. 



ALONE. 

A sad old house by the sea, — 
Were we happy, I and thou. 

In the days that used to be ? 
There is nothing left me now 

But to lie and think of thee. 

With folded hands on my breast, 

And list to the weary sea 
Sobbing itself to rest. 



HENRY JAMES. 225 



[b. Albany, New York, June 3, 1811. d. December 18, 1882.] 
SPIRITUAL EMANCIPATION. 

The current scepticism in regard to the tendencies of 
human nature proceeds upon the fallacy that a man's true 
wealth, the wealth he covets or prizes, is external 
to himself, consisting in the abundance of the Democracy 
things he possesses. The sceptic says that if you j^^^^^ 
leave men free from police restraint, hoAvever well 
you may educate them, there will be no security for prop- 
erty. Of course, then, he believes that man values these 
outward possessions which we call property, above all 
things. There is no sheerer fallacy current than this. For 
the undue value men set upon this sort of possession now 
grows out of its scarcity, grows out of the fact that so 
many are utterly destitute of it. Appetite is never exces- 
sive, never furious, save where it has been starved. The 
frantic hunger we see it so often exhibiting under every 
variety of criminal form, marks only the hideous starvation 
to which society subjects it. It is not a normal, but a 
morbid state of the appetite, growing exclusively out of 
the unnatural compression which is imposed upon it by the 
exigencies of our immature society. Every appetite and 
passion of man's nature is good and beautiful, and destined 
to be fully enjoyed, and a scientific society or fellowship 
among men would ensure this result, without allowing any 
compromise of the individual dignity, especially without 
allowing that fierce and disgusting abandonment to them 
which disfigures so many of our eminent names in church 
and state, and which infallibly attests the uncleanness of 
our present morality. 



226 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Remove, then, the existing bondage of humanity, remove 
those factitious restraints which keep appetite and passion 
on the perpetual lookout for escape, like steam from an 
over-charged boiler, and their force would instantly become 
conservative instead of destructive. 

For man is destined by the very necessity of his creation, 
for nothing but the obedience of his inward and divine self- 
hood, for the obedience of God within him. Even while he 
is utterly unconscious of his true or inmost self-hood, the 
aim of his whole existence, the end of all his struggle and 
toil is to realize it ; and when it does dawn upon him, it 
sheds a complete calm upon the turbid sea of his outward 
relations. 

The effect is irresistible. You cannot arouse a man to 
self-respect, to a sense of his proper humanity, to a con- 
sciousness of the divinity which constitutes his being, 
without rendering him superior to outward accident. He 
is no longer the sport of passion, of conscience, or of ap- 
petite. The master of the house has come at last, and his 
servants render him a prompt and joyous obedience. No 
more in a mere symbolic, but in a very real sense, the Lord 
has entered his holy temple : all the earth, the entire realm 
of the outward and finite, spontaneously keeps silence be- 
fore Him. 



CHARLES ETIENNE ARTHUR GAYARRE. 227 



Cljarles Etienne ^rtfjur ffiagarre* 

[b. New Orleans, Louisiana, January 9, 1S05.] 
THE LEGEND OF THE DATE TREE. 

In a lot situated at the corner of Orleans and Dauphine 

streets, in the city of New Orleans, there is a tree which. 

nobody looks at without curiosity and without 

wonderins? how it came there. For a lonar time ^^*,°yy °^ 
*^ . . . , Louisiana, 

it was the only one of its kind known m the state, 

and from its isolated position, it has always been cursed 
with sterility. It reminds one of the warm climes of Africa 
or Asia, and wears the aspect of a stranger of distinction 
driven from his native country. Indeed, with its sharp and 
thin foliage, sighing mournfully under the blast of one of 
our November northern winds, it looks as sorrowful as an 
exile. Its enormous trunk is nothing but an agglomeration 
of knots and bumps, which each passing year seems to have 
deposited there as a mark of age, and as a protection against 
the blows of time and of the world. Inquire for its origin, 
and every one will tell you that it has stood there from time 
immemorial. A sort of vague but impressive mystery is 
attached to it, and it is as superstitiously respected as one 
of the old oaks of Dodona. Bold would be the axe that 
should strike the first blow at that foreign patriarch ; and 
if it were prostrated to the ground by a profane hand, what 
native of the city would not mourn over its fall, and brand 
the act as an unnatural and criminal deed ? So, long live 
the date tree of Orleans Street — that time-honored descend- 
ant of Asiatic ancestors ! 

In the beginning of 1727, a French vessel of war landed 
at New Orleans a man of haughty mien, who wore the Turk- 
ish dress, and whose whole attendance was a single servant. 



228 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

He was received by the governor with the highest dis- 
tinction, and was conducted by him to a small but comforta- 
ble house with a pretty garden, then existing at the corner 
of Orleans and Dauphine streets, and which, from the cir- 
cumstance of its being so distant from other dwellings, 
might have been called a rural retreat, although situated in 
the limits of the city. There, the stranger, who was under- 
stood to be a prisoner of state, lived in the greatest seclu- 
sion ; and although neither he nor his attendant could be 
guilty of indiscretion, because none understood their lan- 
guage, and although Governor P^rier severely rebuked the 
slightest inquiry, yet it seemed to be the settled conviction 
in Louisiana, that the mysterious stranger was a brother of 
the Sultan, or some great personage of the Ottoman empire, 
who had fled from the anger of the viceregent of Mohammed, 
and who had taken refuge in France. The Sultan had per- 
emptorily demanded the fugitive, and the French govern- 
ment, thinking it derogatory to its dignity to comply with 
that request, but at the same time not wishing to expose its 
friendly relations with the Moslem monarch, and perhaps 
desiring, for political purposes, to keep in hostage the im- 
portant guest it had in its hands, had recourse to the ex- 
pedient of answering that he had fled to Louisiana, which 
was so distant a country that it might be looked upon as 
the grave, where, as it was suggested, the fugitive might be 
suffered to wait in peace for actual death, without danger 
or offence to the Sultan. Whether this story be true or not 
is now a matter of so little consequence, that it would not 
repay the trouble of a strict historical investigation. 

The year 1727 was drawing to its close, when on a dark, 
stormy night, the howling and barking of the numerous 
dogs in the streets of New Orleans were observed to be 
fiercer than usual, and some of that class of individuals 
who pretend to know everything, declared that, by the 
vivid flashes of the lightning, they had seen, swiftly and 
stealthily gliding toward the residence of the unknown, a 
body of men who Avore the scowling appearance of malefac- 



CHARLES ^TIENNE ARTHUR GAYARRE. 229 

tors and ministers of blood. There afterward came also a 
report that a piratical-looking Turkish vessel had been hov- 
ering a few days previous in the bay of Barataria. Be it 
as it may, on the next morning the house of the stranger 
was deserted. There were no traces of mortal struggle to 
be seen; but in the garden, the earth had been dug, and 
there was the unmistakable indication of a recent grave. 
Soon, however, all doubts were removed by the finding of 
an inscription in Arabic characters, engraved on a marble 
tablet, which Avas subsequently sent to France. It ran 
thus : " The justice of heaven is satisfied, and the date 
tree shall grow on the traitor's tomb. The sublime Emperor 
of the faithful, the supporter of the faith, the omnipotent 
master and Sultan of the world, has redeemed his vow. Qod 
is great, and Mohammed is his prophet. Allah ! " Some 
time after this event, a foreign-looking tree was seen to 
peep out of the spot where a corpse must have been depos- 
ited in that stormy night, when the rage of the elements 
yielded to the pitiless fury of man, and it thus explained 
in some degree this part of the inscription, " the date tree 
shall grow on the traitor's grave." 

Who -v^as he, or what had he done, who had provoked 
such relentless and far-seeking revenge ? Ask Nemesis, 
or — at that hour when evil spirits are allowed to roam over 
the earth, and magical invocations are made — go, and in- 
terrogate the tree of the dead. 



230 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



^jjomas 2Suc!}anan Ecati* 

[b. Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1822. d. May 11, 1872.] 
THE WAY-SIDE SPRING. 

Fair dweller by the dusty way — 
Bright saint within a mossy shrine, 

The tribute of a heart to-day 
Weary and worn is thine. 

The earliest blossoms of the year, 
The sweet-briar and the violet, 

The pious hand of Spring has here 
Upon thy altar set. 

And not alone to thee is given 

The homage of the pilgrim's knee — 

But oft the sweetest birds of heaven 
Glide down and sing to thee. 

Here daily from his beechen cell 
The hermit squirrel steals to drink, 

And flocks which cluster to their bell 
Recline along thy brink. 

And here the wagoner blocks his wheels, 
To quaff the cool and generous boon. 

Here from the sultry harvest fields 
The reapers rest at noon. 

And oft the beggar marked with tan. 
In rusty garments gray with dust. 

Here sits and dips his little can. 
And breaks his scanty crust ; 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 231 

And, lulled beside thy whispering stream, 

Oft drops to slumber unawares, 
And sees the angel of his dream 

Upon celestial stairs. 

Dear dweller by the dusty way, 

Thou saint within a mossy shrine, 
The tribute of a heart to-day 

Weary and worn is thine ! 



THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. 

Between broad fields of wheat and corn 
Is the lowly home where I was born ; 
The peach-tree leans against the wall, 
And the woodbine wanders over all ; 
There is the shaded doorway still, 
But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill. 

There is the barn — and, as of yore, 

I can smell the hay from the open door, 

And see the busy swallows throng. 

And hear the peewee's mournful song ; 

But the stranger conies — oh ! painful proof — 

His sheaves are piled to the heated roof. 

There is the orchard — the very trees 
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease, 
And watched the shadowy moments run 
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun : 
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air. 
But the stranger's children are swinging there. 

There bubbles the shady spring below. 

With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow ; 



232 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

'Twas there I found the calamus root, 
And watched the minnows poise and shoot, 
And heard the robin lave his wing, 
But the stranger's bucket is at the spring. 

Oh, ye who daily cross the sill. 

Step lightly, for I love it still ; 

And when you crowd the old barn eaves. 

Then think what countless harvest sheaves 

Have passed within that scented door 

To gladden eyes that are no more. 

Deal kindly with these orchard trees ; 
And when your children crowd their knees, 
Their sweetest fruit they shall impart, 
As if old memories stirred their heart : 
To youthful sport still leave the swing. 
And in sweet reverence hold the spring. 

The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds, 
The meadows with their lowing herds. 
The woodbine on the cottage wall — 
My heart still lingers with them all. 
Ye strangers on my native sill. 
Step lightly, for I love it still ! 



THOMAS STARR KING. 233 



Ebomas ^tarr Ittntj* 

[b. New York, New York, December 17, 1824. d. March 4, 1863.] 
SIGHT AND INSIGHT. 

There may be a meadow farm among the mountains. 
The heir to it gets a cabbage and a corn crop from it, sus- 
pecting no other latent fertility and produce. A man of 
science buys it, gets no less cabbages and hay, but reaps a 
geology-crop as well. 

An artist buys it, and lo ! a harvest of beauty and delight, 
budding even when the grain is garnered, dropping sweet 
into his eyes even from arctic dawns and blazing snows. 
A man of deepest insight lives on it, and the laws of his 
farm open to him the prudence and prodigality of Prov- 
idence. In the way the grain grows, the enemies it has, 
the friendships of all good forces to its advance, in the 
chemistry of his farming, in the peace that sleeps on the 
hills, in the gathering and retreat of storms, in the soft 
approach of spring, and the melancholy death, — he reads 
lessons that become inmost wisdom. He has a faculty 
that is the sickle of more subtle crop-sheaves of spiritual 
truth. . . . 

Just as there are spelling-classes for the youngest schol- 
ars ill our schools, in which the separate letters are the 
chief things they see, where the great problem is to com- 
bine them into words, and where the mental organs are not 
capable of configuring words into propositions, — so very 
few of us on the planet ever get able to handle the letters 
of nature easily, ever get beyond the power of spelling them 
into single words. Some are able to read off the aspects of 
creation into science. They can put the stars together into 
paragraphs that state laws and harmonies and grandeurs. 



234 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Some go farther, and rhyme the mighty vocabulary of 
science into beauty ; but few get such command of the 
language that they see and rejoice in the highest, glorious 
truth which the volume holds. . . , 

Insight, therefore, opens the intellectual world of law 
and harmony beneath the world of physical shows ; within 
that, the world of beauty ; within that again, the realm of 
spiritual language. In the human world it shows, deep 
behind deep, law working in society, controlling politics and 
shaping the destiny of nations ; while, in the individual 
sphere, it unveils man as the epitome of the universe, clad 
continually in the electric vesture of his character. 

Every man, as every animal, has sight ; but just accord- 
ing to the scale of his insight is the world he lives in a 
deep one, an awful one, a mystic and glorious world. We 
see what is, only as we see into what appears. 

Out of three roots grows the great tree of nature, — truth, 
beauty, good. The man of science follows up its mighty 
stem, measures it, and sees its branches in the silver-leaved 
boughs of the firmament. The poet delights in the sym- 
metry of its strength, the grace of its arches, the flush of 
its fruit. Only to the man with finer eye than both is the 
secret glory of it unveiled ; for his vision discerns how it is 
fed and in what air it thrives. To him it is only an expan- 
sion of the burning bush on Horeb, seen by the solemn 
prophet, glowing continually with the presence of Infinite 
Law and Love, yet standing forever unconsumed. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 235 



[b. Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807.] 
IN SCHOOL DAYS. 

Still sits the school-house by the road, 

A ragged beggar sunning ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 

And blackberry -vines are running. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 
Deep scarred by raps official ; 

The warping floor, the battered seats. 
The jack-knife's carved initial; 

The charcoal frescoes on its wall ; 

Its door's worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 

Went storming out to playing ! 

Long years ago, a winter sun 

Shone over it at setting : 
Lit up its western window-panes, 

And low eaves' icy fretting. 

It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving, 

Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy 

Her childish favor singled; 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled. 



236 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow- 
To right and left, he lingered ; — 

As restlessly her tiny hands 

The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 

And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

" I'm sorry that I spelt the word ; 

I hate to go above you, 
Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, 
"Because, you see, I love you !" 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing ! 

He lives to learn, in life's hard school. 
How few who pass above him 

Lament their triumph and his loss, 
Like her, — because they love him. 



ICHABOD! 

So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 

Which once he wore ! 
The glory from his gray hairs gone 

Forevermore ! 

Revile him not, — the Tempter hath 

A snare for all ; 
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath. 

Befit his fall ! 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 237 

O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 

When he who might 
Have lighted up and led his age, 

Falls back in night. 

Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark 

A bright soul driven, 
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark. 

From hope and heaven ! 

Let not the land once proud of him 

Insult him now, 
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim 

Dishonored brow. 

But let its humbled sons, instead. 

From sea to lake, 
A long lament, as for the dead. 

In sadness make. 

Of all we loved and honored, naught 

Save power remains, — 
A fallen angel's pride of thought. 

Still strong in chains. 

All else is gone ; from those great eyes 

The soul has fled : 
When faith is lost, when honor dies. 

The man is dead ! 

Then, pay the reverence of old days 

To his dead fame; 
Walk backward, with averted gaze, 

And hide the shame ! 



238 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



WORSHIP. 

The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, 
And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan 

Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, 
O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. 

Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, 
The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood. 

With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, 
Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. 

Red altars, kindling through that night of error. 
Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye 

Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, 
Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky ; 

Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting 
All heaven above, and blighting earth below, 

The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting. 
And man's oblation was his fear and woe ! 

Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning 
Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer ; 

Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, 
Swung their white censers in the burdened air : 

As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor 

Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please ; 

As if his ear could bend, with childish favor, 
To the poor flattery of the organ keys ! 

Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, 
With trembling reverence : and the oppressor there, 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 239 

Kneeling before liis priest, abased and lowly, 

Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. 

Not such the service the benignant Father 
Requireth at his earthly children's hands : 

Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather 
The simple duty man from man demands. 

For Earth he asks it : the full joy of Heaven 
Knoweth no change of waning or increase ; 

The great heart of the Infinite beats even, 
Untroubled flows the river of his peace. 

He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding 
The priestly altar and the saintly grave, 

No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, 
Nor incense clouding up the twilight nave. 

For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken : 
The holier worship which he deigns to bless. 

Restores the lost, and binds the sj)irit broken, 
And feeds the widow and the fatherless ! 

Types of our human weakness and our sorrow ! 

Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead ? 
Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow 

From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled ? 

brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother ; 

Where pity dwells the peace of God is there ; 
To worship rightly is to love each other, 

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. 

Follow with reverent steps the great example 
Of Him whose holy work was *' doing good " ; 

So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, 
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. 



240 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Then shall all shackles fall ; the stormy clangor 
Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease ; 

Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, 
And in its ashes plant the tree of peace ! 



SNOW-BOUND. 

Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about. 
Content to let the north wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door. 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed. 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head. 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet. 
The mug of cider simmered slow. 
The apples sputtered in a row. 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 
What matter how the north wind raved ? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
Time and Change ! — Avith hair as gray 
As was my sire's that winter day. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 241 

How strange it seems, with so mucli gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou 

Are left of all that circle now : — 

The dear home faces whereupon 

That fitful firelight paled and shone, 

Henceforward, listen as we will, 

The voices of that hearth are still ; 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'ei*, 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 

We tread the paths their feet have worn, 

We sit beneath their orchard trees, 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
We turn the pages that they read. 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 
(Since He who knows our need is just,) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away. 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown. 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own ! 



242 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Albert pme. 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, December 29, 1809.] 

TO CERES. 

Goddess of bounty ! at Avhose spring-time call, 
When on the dewy earth tliy first tones fall, 
Pierces the ground each young and tender blade, 
And wonders at the sun ; each dull, gray glade 
Is shining with new grass ; from each chill hole. 
Where they had lain enchain'd and dull of soul. 
The birds come forth, and sing for joy to thee 
Among the springing leaves ; and, fast and free. 
The rivers toss their chains up to the sun, 
And through their grassy banks leapingly run. 
When thou hast touch'd them : thou who ever art 
The goddess of all beauty : thou whose heart 
Is ever in the sunny meads and fields ; 
To whom the laughing earth looks up and yields 
Her waving treasures : thou that in thy car 
With winged dragons, when the morning star 
Sheds his cold light, touchest the morning trees 
Until they spread their blossoms to the breeze ; — 

0, pour thy light 

Of truth and joy upon our souls this night. 
And grant to us all plenty and good ease ! 

0, thou, the goddess of the rustling corn ! 
Thou to whom reapers sing, and on the lawn 
Pile up their baskets with the full-ear'd wheat ; 
While maidens come, with little dancing feet. 
And bring thee poppies, weaving thee a crown 
Of simple beauty, bending their heads down 



ALBERT PIKE. 243 

To garland thy full baskets : at whose side, 

Among the sheaves of wheat, doth Bacchus ride 

With bright and sparkling eyes, and feet and mouth 

All wine-stain'd from the warm and sunny south : 

Perhaps one arm about thy neck he twines, 

While in his car ye ride among the vines. 

And with the other hand he gathers up 

The rich, full grapes, and holds the glowing cup 

Unto thy lips — and then he throws it by, 

And crowns thee with bright leaves to shade thine eye. 

So it may gaze with richer love and light 

Upon his beaming broAV : If thy swift flight 

Be on some hill 

Of vine-hung Thrace — 0, come, while night is still. 
And greet with heaping arms our gladden'd sight ! 

Lo ! the small stars, above the silver wave, 

Come wandering up the sky, and kindly lave 

The thin clouds with their light, like floating sparks 

Of diamonds in the air ; or spirit barks, 

With unseen riders, wheeling in the sky. 

Lo ! a soft mist of light is rising high. 

Like silver shining through a tint of red. 

And soon the queened moon her love will shed. 

Like pearl-mist, on the earth and on the sea. 

Where thou shalt cross to view our mystery. 

Lo ! we have torches here for thee, and urns, 

Where incense with a floating odor burns, 

And altars piled with various fruits and flowers. 

And ears of corn, gather'd at early hours. 

And odors fresh from India, with a heap 

Of many-color'd poppies : — Lo ! we keep 

Our silent watch for thee, sitting before 

Thy ready altars, till to our lone shore 

Thy chariot-wheels 
Shall come, while ocean to the burden reels. 
And utters to the sky a stifled roar. 



244 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 



TO SPRING. 

thou delicious Spring ! 
Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers, 

Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing 
From odorous beds of light-enfolded flowers, 
And from enmassed bowers, 
That over grassy walks their greenness fling, 
Come, gentle Spring ! 

Thou lover of young wind, 
That conieth from the invisible upper sea 

Beneath the sky, which clouds its white foam bind, 
And, settling in the trees deliciously. 

Makes young leaves dance with glee, 
Even in the teeth of that old, sober hind, 
Winter unkind, 

Come to us ; for thou art 
Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring ! 

Touching the sacred feeling of the heart, 

Or, like a virgin's pleasant welcoming ; 

And thou dost ever bring 

A tide of gentle but resistless art 

Upon the heart. 

Red Autumn from the south 
Contends with thee ; alas ! what may he show ? 

What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth. 
And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow, 
And timid, pleasant glow, 
Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth. 
And greenest youth ? 

Gay Summer conquers thee ; 
And yet he has no beauty such as thine ; 



ALBERT PIKE. 245 

What is liis ever-streaming, fiery sea, 
To the pure glory that with thee doth shine ? 
Thou season most divine. 
What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy 
Compare with thee ? 

Come, sit upon the hills. 
And bid the waking streams leap down their side, 

And green the vales with their slight-sounding rills ; 
And when the stars upon the sky shall glide, 
And crescent Dian ride, 
I, too, will breathe of thy delicious thrills, 
On grassy hills. 

Alas ! bright Spring, not long 
Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence ; 

For thou shalt die the Summer heat among, 
Sublimed to vapor in his fire intense, 
And, gone forever hence, 
Exist no more : no more to earth belong. 
Except in song. 

So I who sing shall die : 
Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow ; 

And, fainting thus, with an unconscious sigh. 
Bid unto this poor body a good-morrow. 
Which now sometimes I borrow, 
And breathe of joyance keener and more high, 
Ceasing to sigh ! 



246 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 



[b. Boston, MaBSachusetts, May 12, 1809.] 

THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 

When I behold a feeble company of exiles, quitting the 
strange land to which persecution had forced them to flee ; 

entering with so many sighs and sobs and partings 
before the ^^^^ prayers on a voyage so full of perils at the 
New-Eng- best, but rendered a hundredfold more perilous by 
land Society, the unusual Severities of the season and the abso- 

lute unseaworthiness of their ship; arriving in 
the depth of winter on a coast to which even their pilot 
was a perfect stranger, and where " they had no friends to 
welcome them, no inns to entertain them, no houses, much 
less towns, to repair unto for succor," but Avhere, — instead 
of friends, shelter, or refreshment, — famine, exposure, the 
wolf, the savage, disease, and death, seemed waiting for 
them; and yet accomplishing an end which royalty and 
patronage, the love of dominion and of gold, individual 
adventure and corporate enterprise had so long essayed in 
vain, and founding a colony which was to defy alike the 
machinations and the menaces of tyranny, in all periods of 
its history, — it needs not that I should find the coral path- 
way of the sea laid bare, and its waves a wall on the right 
hand and on the left, and the crazed chariot-wheels of the 
oppressor floating in fragments upon its closing floods, to 
feel, to realize, that higher than human was the Power 
which presided over the Exodus of the Pilgrim Fathers ! 

Was it not something more than the ignorance or the 
self-will of our earthly and visible pilot, which, instead of 
conducting them to the spot which they had deliberately 
selected, — the very spot on which we are now assembled, 



ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP. 247 

the banks of your own beautiful Hudson, of which they had 
heard so much during their sojourn in Holland, but which 
was then swarming with a host of horrible savages, — 
guided them to a coast which, though bleaker and far less 
hospitable in its outward aspect, had yet, by an extraor- 
dinary epidemic, but a short time previous, been almost 
completely cleared of its barbarous tenants ? Was it not 
something more, also, than mere mortal error or human 
mistake, which, instead of bringing them within the limits 
prescribed in the patent they had procured in England, 
directed them to a shore on which they were to land upon 
their own responsibility and under their own authority, and 
thus compelled them to an act which has rendered Cape 
Cod more memorable than Kunnymede, and the cabin of 
the Mayflower than the proudest hall of ancient charter or 
modern constitution, — the execution of the first written 
original contract of Democratic Self-Goveniment which is 
found in the annals of the world ? 

But the Pilgrims, I have said, had a power within them 
also. If God was not seen among them in the fire of a 
Horeb, in the earthquake of a Sinai, or in the wind cleaving 
asunder the waves of the sea they were to cross. He was 
with them, at least, in the still, small voice. Conscience, 
conscience, was the nearest to an earthly power which the 
Pilgrims possessed, and the freedom of conscience the nearest 
to an earthly motive which prompted their career. It was 
conscience which "■ weaned them from the delicate milk of 
their mother country, and inured them to the difliculties 
of a strange land." It was conscience which made them 
not as other men, whom small things could discourage, or 
small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home 
again. It was conscience — that "robur et aes triplex cir- 
capectus " — which emboldened them to launch their fragile 
bark upon a merciless ocean, fearless of the fighting winds 
and lowering storms. It was conscience which stiffened 
them to brave the perils, endure the hardships, undergo 
the privations of a howling, houseless, hopeless desolation. 



248 AMERICAN LITERATUKE. 

And thus, almost in the very age when the Great Master of 
human nature was putting into the mouth of one of his 
most interesting and philosophical characters that well- 
remembered conclusion of a celebrated soliloquy, — 

" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action," — 

this very conscience, a clog, and an obstacle, indeed, to its 
foes, but the surest strength and sharpest spur of its friends, 
was inspiring a courage, confirming a resolution, and accom- 
plishing an enterprise, to which the records of the world 
will be searched in vain to find a parallel. Let it never be 
forgotten that it was conscience, and that not intrenched 
behind broad seals, but enshrined in brave souls, Avhich 
carried through and completed the long-baffled undertaking 
of settling the New England coast. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 249 



(©Itijer SEentirll flolmes:. 

[b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809.] 

OPINIONS. 

The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand up, 
as a pointer lifts his forefoot, at the expression, " his rela- 
tions with truth as I understand truth," and when rj,jj . . 
I had done, sniffed audibly, and said I talked like crat of the 
a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense Breakfast 
was good enough for him. Precisely so, my dear 
sir, I replied ; common sense, as you understand it. We 
all have to assume a standard of judgment in our own 
minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing 
to take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in 
the choice of wliom to follow, which is often as nice a mat- 
ter as to judge of things for one's self. On the whole, I 
had rather judge men's minds by comparing their thoughts 
with my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who 
utter them. I must do one or the other. It does not 
follow, of course, that I may not recognize another man's 
thoughts as broader and deeper than my own ; but that does 
not necessarily change my opinion, otherwise this would be 
at the mercy of every superior mind that held a different 
one. How many of our most cherished beliefs are like 
those drinking-glasses of the ancient pattern, that serve us 
well so long as we keep them in our hand, but spill all if 
we attempt to set them down ! I have sometimes compared 
conversation to the Italian game of mora, in which one 
player lifts his hand with so many fingers extended, and 
the other gives the number if he can. I show my thought, 
another his ; if they agree, well ; if they differ, we find the 
largest common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid dis- 



250 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

putiiig about remainders and fractions, which is to real 
talk what tuning an instrument is to playing on it. 



TALK. 

I really believe soiiie people save their bright thoughts 
as being too precious for conversation. What do you think 
The Auto- ^^ admiring friend said the other day to one that 
crat of the was talking good things, — good enough to print ? 
Breakfast "Why," Said he, "you are wasting merchantable 
Table. literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as 

I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him 
to the window, and asked him to look out and tell what he 
saw. 

'' ISTothing but a very dusty street," he said, " and a man 
driving a sprinkling-machine through it." 

" Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water ? 
What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did 
not drive our thought-sprinklers through them with the valves 
open, sometimes ? " 

Besides, there is another thing about this talking, Avhich 
you forget. It shapes our thoughts for us ; — the waves of 
conversation roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the 
shore. Let me modify the image a little. I rough out my 
thoughts in talk as an artist models in clay. Spoken lan- 
guage is so plastic, — you can pat and coax, and spread and 
shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when 
you Work that soft material, that there is nothing like it 
for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you turn 
into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen 
to write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or 
printing is like shooting with a rifle ; you may hit your 
reader's mind, or miss it ; — but talking is like playing at a 
mark with the pipe of an engine ; if it is within reach, and 
you have time enough, you can't help hitting it. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 251 



TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. 

When we are as yet small children, long before the time 
when those two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, 
there comes up to us a youthful angel, holding in his right 
hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like ^^^^ ^^^g. 
marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on crat of the 
each is written in letters of gold. Truth. The Breakfast 
spheres are veined and streaked and spotted be- ^ ®" 
neath, with a dark crimson flush above, where the light falls 
upon them, and in a certain aspect you can make out upon 
every one of them the three letters L, I, E. The child to 
whom they are offered very likely clutches at both. The 
spheres are the most convenient things in the world ; they 
roll with the least possible impulse just where the child 
would have them. The cubes will not roll at all ; they have 
a great talent for standing still, and always keep right side 
up. But very soon the young philosopher finds that things 
which roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong 
corner, and to get out of his way when he most wants them, 
while he always knows where to find the others, which stay 
where they are left. Thus he learns — thus we learn — to 
drop the streaked and speckled globes of falsehood, and to 
hold fast the white, angular blocks of truth. But then 
comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all 
Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must roll, or nobody 
can do anything with it ; and so the first with her coarse 
rasp, and the second with her broad file, and the third with 
her silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish 
the snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they have got a 
little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the 
rolling spheres of falsehood. 



252 AMERICAN- LITERATURE. 



THE LAST LEAF. 



I saw him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound, 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down. 
Not a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan. 
And he shakes his feeble head. 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said, — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago, — 
That he had a Eonian nose. 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 253 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And. a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring. 
Let them smile as I do now. 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign. 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare. 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is this ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell. 



254 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grcAv, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new. 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 

Child of the wandering sea. 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings. 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, my soul. 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. 

Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 



UNDER THE VIOLETS. 

Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
No more her pulses come and go ; 

Her eyes are shut to life and light ; — 
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow. 
And lay her where the violets blow. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 255 

But not beneath a graven stone, 
To plead for tears with alien eyes ; 

A slender cross of wood alone 
Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 

And gray old trees of hugest limb 

Shall wheel their circling shadows round 

To make the scorching sunlight dim 

That drinks the greenness from the ground, 
And drop their dead leaves on J^r mound. 

When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, 
And through their leaves the robins call, 

And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
The acorns and the chestnuts fall, 
Doubt not that she will heed them all. 

For her the morning choir shall sing 
Its matins from the branches high, 

And every minstrel-voice of spring. 
That trills beneath the April sky. 
Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 

When, twining round their dial-track. 
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, 

Her little mourners, clad in black. 

The crickets sliding through the grass. 
Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 

At last the rootlets of the trees 

Shall find the prison where she lies, 

And bear the buried dust they seize 
In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 



256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

If any, bom of kindlier blood, 

Should ask, What maiden lies below ? 

Say only this : A tender bud, 

That tried to blossom in the snow, 
Lies withered where the violets blow. 



HARRIET BEECIIER STOWE. 257 



f^arriet Beccfjer -Stoiwe, 

[b. Litchfield, Connecticut, June 14, 1812.] 
SAM MENDS THE CLOCK. 

'' Why, ye see, Miss Lois," lie would say, " clocks can't 
be druv ; that's jest what they can't. Some things can be 
druv, and then agin some things can't, and clocks 
is that kind. They's jest got to be humored. „ ,^°'^° 
Now this 'ere's a 'mazin' good clock ; give me my 
time on it, and I'll have it so t'will keep straight on to the 
Millennium." 

"Millennium !" says Aunt Lois, with a snort of infinite 
contempt. " Yes, the Millennium," says Sam, letting fall 
his work in a contemplative manner. " That 'ere's an inter- 
estin' topic. Now Parson Lothrop, he don't think the Mil- 
lennium will last a thousand years. What's your 'pinion 
on that pint. Miss Lois ? " 

"My opinion is," said Aunt Lois, in her most nipping 
tones, "that if folks don't mind their own business, and do 
with their might what their hand finds to do, the Millen- 
nium won't come at all." 

" Wal, you see. Miss Lois, it's just here, — one day is 
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day." 

" I should think you thought a day was a thousand years, 
the way you work," said Aunt Lois. 

" Wal," says Sam, sitting down with his back to his des- 
perate litter of wheels, weights, and pendulums, and medi- 
tatively caressing his knee as he watched the sailing clouds 
in abstract meditation, "ye see, ef a thing's ordained, why 
it's got to be, ef you don't lift a finger. That 'ere's so now, 
ain't it ? " 



258 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" Sam Lawson, you are about the most aggravating crea- 
ture I ever had to do with. Here you've got our clock all 
to pieces, and have been keeping up a perfect hurrah's nest 
in our kitchen for three days, and there you sit maundering 
and talking with your back to your work, fussin' about the 
Millennium, which is none of your business, or mine, as 
I know of! Do either put that clock together or let it 
alone ! " 

" Don't you be a grain uneasy. Miss Lois. Why, I'll have 
your clock all right in the end, but I can't be druv. Wal, 
I guess I'll take another spell on't to-morrow or Friday." 

Poor Aunt Lois, horror-stricken, but seeing herself actvi- 
ally in the hands of the imperturbable enemy, now essayed 
the task of conciliation. " Now do, Lawson, just finish up 
this job, and I'll pay you down, right on the spot ; and you 
need the money." 

" I'd like to 'blige ye, Miss Lois ; but ye see money ain't 
everything in this world. Ef I work tew long on one thing, 
my mind kind o' gives out, ye see ; and besides, I've got 
some 'sponsibilities to 'tend to. There's Mrs. Captain Brown, 
she made me promise to come to-day and look at the nose 
o' that 'ere silver teapot o' hern ; it's kind o' sprung a leak. 
And then I 'greed to split a little oven-wood for the Widdah 
Pedee, that lives up on the Shelburn road. Must visit the 
widdahs in their affliction, Scriptur' says. And then there's 
Hepsy : she's allers a castin' it up at me that I don't do 
notliing for her and the chil'en; but then, lordy massy, 
Hepsy hain't no sort o' patience. Why, jest this mornin' 
I was a tellin' her to count up her marcies, and I 'clare for't 
if I didn't think she'd a throwed the tongs at me. That 
'ere woman's temper railly makes me consarned. Wal, 
good day, Miss Lois. I'll be along again to-morrow or 
Friday or the first o' next week." And away he went 
with long loose strides down the village street, while the 
leisurely wail of an old fuguing tune floated back after 
him, — 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 259 

" Thy years are an 
Etarnal day, 
Thy years are an 
Etarnal day." 

"All eternal torment," said Aunt Lois, with a snap. 
"I'm sure, if there's a mortal creature on this earth that 
I pity, it's Hepsy Lawson. Folks talk about her scolding, 
— that Sam Lawson is enough to make the saints in Heaven 
fall from grace. And you can't do anything with him : 
it's like charging bayonet into a wool-sack." 



EVA AND TOPSY. 

"What's Eva going about, now ? " said St. Clare ; " I mean 
to see." 

And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain 
that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a 
moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made 
a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There 
sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces 
towards them. Topsy, with her usual air of careless drol- 
lery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole 
face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes. 

" What does make you so bad, Topsy ? Why don't you 
try and be good ? Don't you love anybody, Topsy ? " 

" Dunno nothing 'bout love ; I loves candy and sich, that's 
all," said Topsy. 

" But you love your father and mother ? " 

" Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva." 

"0, I know," said Eva, sadly; "but hadn't you any 
brother, or sister, or aunt, or " — 

" No, none on 'em, — never had nothing nor nobody." 

" But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might " — 

" Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so 
good," said Topsy. " If I could be skinned, and come white, 
I'd try then." 



Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, 



260 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss 
Ophelia would love you, if you were good." 

Topsy gave tlie short, blunt laugh that was her common 
mode of expressing incredulity. 

" Don't you think so ? " said Eva. 

" No ; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger ! — she'd's 
soon have a toad touch her ! There can't nobody love nig- 
gers, and niggers can't do nothin' ! / don't care," said 
Topsy, beginning to whistle. 

" 0, Topsy, poor child, / love you ! " said Eva, with a 
sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little, thin, white 
hand on Topsy's shoulder ; " I love you, because you haven't 
had any father, or mother, or friends ; — because you've 
been a poor, abused child ! I love you, and I want you to be 
good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live 
a great while ; and it really grieves me, to have you be so 
naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake ; — 
it's only a little while I shall be with you." 

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast 
with tears ; — large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one 
by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that 
moment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had 
penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul ! She laid her 
head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed, — while 
the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture 
of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner. 

" Poor Toj^sy ! " said Eva, " don't you know that Jesus 
loves all alike ? He is just as willing to love you as me. 
He loves you just as I do, — only more, because he is better. 
He will help you to be good ; and you can go to Heaven at 
last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were 
white. Only think of it, Topsy ! — you can be one of those 
spirits bright, Uncle Tom sings about." 

" 0, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva ! " said the child ; 
" I will try, I will try ; I never did care nothin' about it 
before," 

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. " It puts 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 261 

me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. "It is 
true what she tokl me ; if we want to give sight to the blind, 
we must be willing to do as Christ did, — call them to us, 
and pitf oxLr hands on them.'" 

"I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss 
Ophelia, "and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that 
child touch me ; but I didn't think she knew it." 

" Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare ; " there's 
no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying 
in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors 
you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude 
while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart ; — 
it's a queer kind of fact, — but so it is." 

"I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; 
" they are disagreeable to me, — this child in particular ; — 
how can I help feeling so ? " 

"Eva does, it seems." 

" Well, she's so loving ! After all, though, she's no more 
than Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia ; " I wish I were like 
her. She might teach me a lesson." 

" It Avouldn't be the first time a little child had been used 
to instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare. 



ROMANCE. 

All prosaic, and all bitter, disenchanted people talk as if 
novelists and poets made romance. They do, — just as much 
as craters make volcanoes, — no more. What is 
romance ? whence comes it ? Plato spoke to the . 
subject wisely, in his quaint way, some two thou- -^ooijig. 
sand years ago, when he said, "Man's soul, in a 
former state, was winged, and soared among the gods ; and 
so it comes to pass, that, in this life, when the soul, by the 
power of music or poetry, or the sight of beauty, hath her 
remembrance quickened, forthwith there is a struggling 



262 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and a pricking pain as of wings tiying to come forth, — 
even as cliilclren in teething." And if an old heathen, two 
thousand years ago, discoursed thus gravely of the romantic 
part of our nature, whence comes it that in Christian lands 
we think in so pagan a way of it, and turn the whole care 
of it to ballad-makers, romancers, and opera-singers ? 

Let us look up in fear and reverence and say, " God is 
the great maker of romance. He, from whose hand came 
man and woman, — he, who strung the great harp of Exis- 
tence with all its wild and wonderful and manifold chords, 
and attuned them to one another, — he is the great Poet of 
life." Every impulse of beauty, of heroism, every craving 
for purer love, fairer perfection, nobler type and style of 
being than that which closes like a prison-house around us, 
in the dim, daily walk of life, is God's breath, God's 
impulse, God's reminder to the soul that there is something 
higher, sweeter, purer, yet to be attained. 

Therefore, man or woman, when thy ideal is shattered, — 
as shattered a thousand times it must be, — when the vision 
fades, the rapture burns out, turn not away in scepticism 
and bitterness, saying, "There is nothing better for a man 
than that he should eat and drink," but rather cherish the 
revelations of those hours as prophecies and foreshadow- 
ings of something real and possible, yet to be attained in 
the manhood of immortality. The scoffing spirit that 
laughs at romance is an apple of the Devil's own handing 
from the bitter tree of knowledge ; — it opens the eyes only 
to see eternal nakedness. 

If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friend- 
ship, — a boundless worship and belief in some hero of 
your soul, — if ever you have so loved, that all cold pru- 
dence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down 
like driftwood before a river flooded with new rain from 
heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to 
cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an 
offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, — if 
you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 263 

to God that yoii have had one glimpse of heaven. The 
door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest 
capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known 
to you ; treasure it as the highest honor of your being, that 
ever you could so feel, — that so divine a guest ever pos- 
sessed your soul. 

By such experiences are we taught the pathos, the sacred- 
ness of life ; and if we use them wisely, our eyes will ever 
after be anointed to see what poems, what sublime trage- 
dies lie around us in the daily walks of life, " written not 
with ink, but in fleshy tables of the heart." The dullest 
street of the most prosaic town has matter in it for more 
smiles, more tears, more intense excitement, than ever were 
written in story or sung in poem ; the reality is there, of 
which the romancer is the second-hand recorder. 



264 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Sours Fers* 

[b. Salem, Massachusetts, August 28, 1813. d. May 8, 1880.] 

THE LOST. 

The fairest day tliat ever yet has shone 
Will be when thou the day within shalt see ; 
The fairest rose that ever yet has blown, 
When thou the flower thou lookest on shalt be ; 
But thou art far away amidst Time's toys ; 
Thyself the day thou lookest for in them, 
Thyself the flower that now thine eye enjoys ; 
But wilted now thou hang'st upon thy stem ; 
The bird thou hearest on the budding tree 
Thou hast made sing with thy forgotten voice ; 
But when it swells again to melody, 
The song is thine in which thou wilt rejoice ; 
And thou new risen 'midst these wonders, live, 
That now to them dost all thy substance give. 



TO THE HUMMING-BIRD. 

I cannot heal thy green gold breast. 
Where deep those cruel teeth have prest. 
Nor bid thee raise thy ruffled crest, 

And seek thy mate. 
Who sits alone within thy nest, 

Nor sees thy fate. 

No more with him in summer hours 
Thou'lt hum amid the leafy bowers, 
Nor hover round the dewy flowers, 



JONES VERY. 265 

To feed thy young ; 
Nor seek, when evening darkly lowers, 
Thy nest high hung. 

No more thou'lt know a mother's care 
Thy honied spoils at eve to share. 
Nor teach thy tender brood to dare, 

With upward spring, 
Their path through lields of sunny air, 

On new-fledged wing. 

For thy return in vain shall wait 

Thy tender young, thy fond, fond mate. 

Till night's last stars beam forth full late 

On their sad eyes, — 
Unknown, alas ! thy cruel fate. 

Unheard thy cries ! 



266 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



SEilUam Eoss SEallace, 

[b. Lexington, Kentucky, 1819. d. May 5, 1881.] 
EL AMIN — THE FAITHFUL. 

Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp 

and pride, 
But a great, free son of Nature, lion-soul'd and eagle-eyed : 
Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the 

sod? 
While he cries out, '' Allah Akbar ! and there is no god but 

God ! " 
Wandering in the solemn desert, he has wonder'd like a 

child. 
Not as yet too proud to wonder, at the sun and star and 

wild. 
0, thou Moon ! who made thy brightness ? Stars ! who 

hung ye there on high ? 
Answer ! so my soul may worship : I must worship, or I die. 
Then there fell the brooding silence that precedes the thun- 
der's roll : 
And the old Arabian Whirlwind called another Arab soul. 
Who is this that come from Hara ? not in kingly pomp and 

pride, 
But a great free son of Nature, lion-soul'd and eagle-eyed : 
He has stood and seen Mount Hara to the Awful Presence 

nod; 
He has heard from cloud and lightning, " Know there is no 

god but God ! " 
Call ye this man " an impostor " ? — He was called The 

Faithful, when 
A boy he wandered o'er the deserts, by the wild-eyed Arab 

men. 



WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. 267 

He was always call'd The Faithful. Truth he knew was 

Allah's breath ; 
But the Lie went darkly gnashing through the corridors of 

Death. 
" He was fierce ! " — Yes ! fierce at falsehood, — fierce at 

hideous bits of wood 
That the Koreish taught the people made the sun and 

solitude. 
But his heart was also gentle ; and affection's graceful palm, 
Waving in his tropic spirit, to the weary brought a balm. 
" Precepts ? " — Have on each compassion ! Lead the 

stranger to your door ! 
In your dealings keep uj) justice ! Give a tenth unto the 

poor ! 
" Yet, ambitious ! " — Yes ! ambitious — while he heard the 

calm and sweet 
Aidenn-voices sing — to trample conqner'd Hell beneath his 

feet. 
" Islam ? " — Yes ! submit to heaven ! — '' Prophet ? " — To 

the East thou art ! 
What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir 

the heart ? 
And the great Heart of the Desert stirr'd unto that solemn 

strain 
Rolling from the trump at Hara, over Error's troubled main. 
And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod. 
Daily chaunting — " Allah Akbar ! know there is no god 

but God ! " 
Call him, then, no more Impostor ! Mecca is the Choral 

Gate 
Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in the 

morning wait. 



268 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



3ol}n Hotljrop ilotlfg. 

[b. Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 15, 1814. d. May 29, 1877.] 
ABDICATION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH. 

The palace where the states-general were upon this occa- 
sion convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Bra- 
bant since the days of John the Second, who had 
Else of the ^^^^^t it about the year 1300. It was a spacious 
Eepublic. ^^^^ convenient building, but not distinguished for 
the beauty of its architecture. In front Avas a 
large open square, enclosed by an iron railing ; in the rear 
an extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest trees, 
and containing gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game 
preserves, fountains and promenades, race-courses and arch- 
ery grounds. The main entrance to this edifice opened upon 
a spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical 
chapel. 

The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious propor- 
tions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place 
where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece 
were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry 
of Arras, representing the life and achievements of Gideon, 
the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the 
miracle of the " fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned 
champion, the great patron of the Knights of the Fleece. 

On the present occasion there were various additional 
embellishments of flowers and votive garlands. At the 
western end a spacious platform or stage, with six or seven 
steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of 
benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon 
the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with tap- 
estry, upon the right hand and upon the left. 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 269 

These were respectively to accommodate the knights of 
the order and the guests of high distinction. In the rear 
of these were other benches, for the members of the three 
great councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid 
canopy, decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath 
which were placed three gilded arm-chairs. All the seats 
upon the platform were vacant; but the benches below, 
assigned to the deputies of the provinces, were already 
filled. Numerous representatives from all the states but 
two — Gelderland and Overyssel — had already taken their 
places. Grave magistrates, in chain and gown, and execu- 
tive officers in the splendid civic uniforms for which the 
Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat 
within the space allotted. The remainder of the hall was 
crowded with the more favored portion of the multitude 
Avhich had been fortunate enough to procure admission to 
the exhibition. The archers and halle-bardiers of the 
body-guard kept watch at all the doors. The theatre was 
filled — the audience was eager with expectation — the 
actors were yet to arrive. As the clock struck three, 
the hero of the scene appeared. Csesar, as he was always 
designated in the classic language of the day, entered, 
leaning on the shoulder of William of Orange. They came 
from the chapel, and were immediately followed by Philip 
the Second and Queen Mary of Hungary. The Archduke 
Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and other great person- 
ages came afterwards, accompanied by a glittering throng 
of warriors, councillors, governors, and Knights of the 
Fleece. 

Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity 
in the Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the stu- 
dent of the epoch, seemed to have been grouped, as if by 
premeditated design, upon this imposing platform, where 
the curtain was to fall forever upon the mightiest emperor 
since Charlemagne, and where the opening scene of the long 
and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reign was to be simulta- 
neously enacted. . . . 



270 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

All the company present had risen to their feet as the 
emperor entered. By his command, all immediately after- 
wards resumed their places. The benches at either end of 
the platform were accordingly filled with the royal and 
princely personages invited, with the Fleece Knights, wear- 
ing the insignia of their order, with the members of the 
three great councils, and with the governors. The Emperor, 
the King, and the Queen of Hungary, were left conspicuous 
in the centre of the scene. As the whole object of the 
ceremony was to present an impressive exhibition, it is 
worth our while to examine minutely the appearance of the 
two principal characters. 

Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight 
months old, but he was already decrepit with premature old 
age. He was of about the middle height, and had been ath- 
letic and well proportioned. Broad in the shoulders, deep in 
the chest, thin in the flank, very muscular in the arms and 
legs, he had been able to match himself with all competitors 
in the tourney and the ring, and to vanquish the bull with 
his own hand in the favorite national amusement of Spaiii. 
He had been able in the field to do the duty of captain and 
soldier, to endure fatigue and exposure, and every privation 
except fasting. These personal advantages were now de- 
parted. Crippled in hands, knees and legs, he supported 
himself with difficulty upon a crutch, with the aid of an at- 
tendant's shoulder. In face he had always been extremely 
ugly, and time had certainly not improved his physiognomy. 
His hair, once of a light color, was now white with age, 
close-clipped and bristling ; his beard was gray, coarse, and 
shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding ; the 
eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and 
benignant. His nose was aquiline but crooked. The lower 
part of his face was famous for its deformity. The under 
lip, a Burgundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as 
the duchy and county, was heavy and hanging ; the lower 
jaw protruding so far beyond the upper, that it was impos- 
sible for him to bring together the few fragments of teeth 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 271 

which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an 
intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which 
he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more 
arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now 
seemed hardly human, but rather an original deformity. 

So much for the father. The son, Philip the Second, 
was a small, meagre man, much below the middle height, 
with thin legs, a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air 
of an habitual invalid. He seemed so little, upon his first 
visit to his aunts, the Queens Eleanor and Mary, accustomed 
to look upon proper men in Flanders and Germany, that he 
was fain to win their favor by making certain attempts in 
the tournament, in which his success was sufficiently prob- 
lematical. " His body," says his professed panegyrist, " was 
but a human cage, in which, however brief and narrow, 
dwelt a soul to whose flight the immeasurable expanse of 
heaven Avas too contracted." The same wholesale admirer 
adds, that "his aspect was so reverend, that rustics who 
met him alone in the wood, without knowing him, bowed 
down with instinctive veneration." In face, he was the liv- 
ing image of his father, having the same broad forehead, 
and blue eye, with the same aquiline, but better propor- 
tioned nose. In the lower part of the countenance, the 
remarkable Burgundian deformity was likewise reproduced. 
He had the same heavy hanging lip, with a vast mouth, and 
monstrously protruding lower jaw. His complexion was 
fair, his hair light and thin, his beard yellow, short, and 
pointed. He had the aspect of a Fleming, but the loftiness 
of a Spaniard. His demeanor in public was still, silent, 
almost sepulchral. He looked habitually on the ground 
when he conversed, was chary of speech, embarrassed, and 
even suffering in manner. This was ascribed partly to a 
natural haughtiness which he had occasionally endeavored 
to overcome, and partly to habitual pains in the stomach, 
occasioned by his inordinate fondness for pastry. 

Such was the personal appearance of the man who was 
about to receive into his single hand the destinies of half 



272 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the world ; Avhose single will was, for the future, to shape 
the fortunes of every individual then present, of many mil- 
lions more in Europe, America, and at the ends of the earth, 
and of countless millions yet unborn. 

The three royal personages being seated upon chairs 
placed triangularly under the canopy, such of the audience 
as had seats provided for them, now took their places, and 
the proceedings commenced. Philibert de Bruxelles, a mem- 
ber of the privy council of the Netherlands, arose at the 
emperor's command, and made a long oration. . . . 

As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration 
throughout the assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, 
that in the present great danger upon the frontiers from 
the belligerent King of France and his warlike and restless 
nation, the provinces should be left without their ancient 
and puissant defender. The emperor then arose to his feet. 
Leaning on his crutch, he beckoned from his seat the per- 
sonage upon whose arm he had leaned as he entered the 
hall. A tall handsome youth of twenty-two came forward 
— a man whose name from that time forward, and as long 
as history shall endure, has been, and will be, more familiar 
than any other in the mouths of Ketherlanders. 

At that day he had rather a southern than a German or 
Flemish appearance. He had a Spanish cast of features, 
dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical. His head was small 
and well placed upon his shoulders. His hair was dark- 
brown, as were also his moustache and peaked beard. His 
forehead was lofty, spacious, and already prematurely en- 
graved with the anxious lines of thought. His eyes were 
full, brown, well opened, and expressive of profound reflec- 
tion. He was dressed in the magnificent apparel for which 
the Netherlanders were celebrated above all other nations, 
and which the ceremony rendered necessary. His presence 
being considered indispensable at this great ceremony, he 
had been summoned but recently from the camp on the 
frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the emperor had 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 273 

appointed him to command his army in chief against such 
antagonists as Admiral Coligny and the Due de Nevers. 

Thus supported upon his crutch and upon the shoulder 
of William of Orange, the emperor proceeded to address 
the states, by the aid of a closely-written brief which he 
held in his hand. He reviewed rapidly the progress of 
events from his seventeenth year up to that day. He spoke 
of his nine expeditions into Germany, six to Spain, seven 
to Italy, four to France, ten to the Netherlands, two to Eng- 
land, as many to Africa, and of his eleven voyages by sea. 
He sketched his various wars, victories, and treaties of peace, 
assuring his hearers that the welfare of his subjects and 
the security of the Roman Catholic religion had ever been 
the leading object of his life. As long as God had granted 
him health, he continued, only enemies could have regret- 
ted that Charles was living and reigning, but now that his 
strength was but vanity, and life fast ebbing away, his love 
for dominion, his affection for his subjects, and his regard 
for their interests, required his departure. Instead of a 
decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he presented them 
with a sovereign in the prime of life and the vigor of health. 
Turning toward Philip, he observed, that for a dying father 
to bequeath so magnificent an empire to his son was a 
deed worthy of gratitude, but that when the father thus 
descended to the grave before his time, and by an anticipated 
and living burial sought to provide for the welfare of his 
realms and the grandeur of his son, the benefit thus con- 
ferred was surely far greater. He added, that the debt 
would be paid to him and with usury, should Philip conduct 
himself in his administration of the province with a wise 
and affectionate regard to their true interests. Posterity 
would applaud his abdication, should his son prove worthy 
of his bounty ; and that could only be by living in the fear 
of God, and by maintaining law, justice, and the Catholic 
religion in all their purity, as the true foundation of the 
realm. In conclusion, he entreated the estates, and through 



274 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

them the nation, to render obedience to their new prince, 
to maintain concord, and to preserve inviolate the Catholic 
faith; begging them at the same time, to pardon him all 
errors or offences which he might have committed towards 
them during his reign, and assuring them that he should 
unceasingly remember their obedience and affection in his 
every prayer to that Being to whom the remainder of his 
life was to be dedicated. 

Such brave words as these, so many vigorous assevera- 
tions of attempted performance of duty, such fervent hopes 
expressed of a benign administration in behalf of the son, 
could not but affect the sensibilities of the audience, already 
excited and softened by the impressive character of the 
whole display. Sobs were heard throughout every portion 
of the hall, and tears poured profusely from every eye. 
The Fleece Knights on the platform and the burghers in 
the background were all melted with the same emotions. 

As for the emperor himself, he sank almost fainting 
upon his chair as he concluded his address. An ashy pale- 
ness overspread his countenance, and he wept like a child. 
Even the icy Philip was almost softened, as he rose to per- 
form his part of the ceremony. Dropping upon his knees 
before his father's feet, he reverently kissed his hand. 
Charles placed his hands solemnly upon his son's head, 
made the sign of the cross, and blessed him in the name of 
the Holy Trinity. Then raising him in his arms he ten- 
derly embraced him, saying, as he did so, to the great poten- 
tates around him, that he felt a sincere compassion for the 
son on whose shoulders so heavy a weight had just devolved, 
and which only a life-long labor would enable him to 
support. 



RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR. 275 



Eidjarti ^twx^ ©ana, %x. 

[b, Cambridge, Massacbusetts, August 1, 1815. d. January 7, 1882.] 

FLOGGING. 

The crew and officers followed the captain np the hatch- 
way ; but it was not until after repeated orders that the 
mate laid hold of Sam, who made no resistance, 
and carried him to the £?am?way. "^^^ Yasji 

u^KU 4. • ^ fl ^1 ^ r Before the 

"What are you going to nog that man tor, j^^^^^^ 

sir ? " said John, the Swede, to the captain. 

Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon John ; but, 
knowing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the 
steward to bring the irons, and calling upon Russell to help 
him, went up to John. 

"Let me alone," said John. "I'm willing to be put in 
irons. You need not use any force " ; and, putting out his 
hands, the captain slipped the irons on, and sent him aft to 
the quarter-deck. Sam, by this time, was seized up, as it is 
called, that is, placed against the shrouds, with his wrists 
made fast to them, his jacket off, and his back exposed. 
The captain stood on the break of the deck, a few feet from 
him, and a little raised, so as to have a good swing at him, 
and held in his hand the end of a thick, strong rope. The 
officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in 
the waist. All these preparations made me feel sick and 
almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man — a 
human being, made in God's likeness — fastened up and 
flogged like a beast ! A man, too, whom I had lived with, 
eaten with, and stood watch with for months, and knew so 
well ! If a thought of resistance crossed the minds of any 
of the men, what was to be done ? Their time for it had 
gone by. Two men were fast, and there were left only two 



276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

men besides Stimpson and myself, and a small boy of ten 
or twelve years of age ; and Stimpson and I would not have 
joined the men in a mutiny, as they knew. And then, on 
the other side, there were (beside the captain) three officers, 
steward, agent, and clerk, and the cabin supplied with 
weapons. But beside the numbers, what is there for sailors 
to do? If they resist, it is mutiny; and if they succeed, 
and take the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, 
their punishment must come ; and if they do not yield, what 
are they to be for the rest of their lives ? If a sailor resist 
his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission 
is his only alternative. Bad as it was, they saw it must be 
borne. It is what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope 
over his head, and bending his body so as to give it full 
force, the captain brought it down upon the poor fellow's 
back. Once, twice, — six times. *' Will you ever give me 
any more of your jaw ? " The man writhed with pain, but 
said not a word. Three times more. This was too much, 
and he muttered something which I could not hear; this 
brought as many more as the man could stand, when the 
captain ordered him to be cut down, and to go forward. 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 277 



Bagartr ^aglor. 

[b. Chester County, Pennsj'lvania, January 11, 1825. d. December 19, 1878.] 
LOVE RETURNED. 

He was a boy when first we met ; 

His eyes were mixed of dew and fire, 
And on his candid brow was set 

The sweetness of a chaste desire : 
But in his veins the pulses beat 

Of passion, waiting for its wing. 
As ardent veins of summer heat 

Throb througli the innocence of spring. 

As manhood came, his stature grew, 

And fiercer burned his restless eyes. 
Until I trembled, as he drew 

From wedded hearts their young disguise. 
Like wind-fed flame his ardor rose, 

And brought, like flame, a stormy rain : 
In tumult sweeter than repose, 

He tossed the souls of joy and pain. 

So many years of absence change ! 

I knew him not when he returned : 
His step was slow, his brow was strange. 

His quiet eye no longer burned. 
When at my heart I heard his knock, 

No voice within his right confessed ; 
I could not venture to unlock 

Its chambers to an alien guest. 



278 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

Then, at the threshold, spent and worn 

With fruitless travel, down he lay : 
And I beheld the gleams of morn 

On his reviving beauty play. 
I knelt and kissed his holy lips, 

I washed his feet with pious care ; 
And from my life the long eclipse 

Drew off, and left his sunshine there. 

He burns no more with youthful fire ; 

He melts no more in foolish tears ; 
Serene and sweet, his eyes inspire 

The steady faith of balanced years. 
His folded wings no longer thrill. 

But in some peaceful flight of prayer 
He nestles in my heart so still, 

I scarcely feel his presence there. 

Love, that stern probation o'er, 

Thy calmer blessing is secure ! 
Thy beauteous feet shall stray no more, 

Thy peace and patience shall endure ! 
The lightest wind deflowers the rose, 

The rainbow with the sun departs, 
But thovi art centred in repose. 

And rooted in my heart of hearts ! 



BEDOUIN SONG. 

From the Desert I come to thee 
On a stallion shod with fire : 

And the winds are left behind 
In the speed of my desire. 

Under thy window I stand, 

And the midnight hears my cry ; 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 

I love thee, I love but tliee, 

With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold ! 

Look from thy window and see 

My passion and my pain ; 
I lie on the sands below, 

And I faint in thy disdain. 
Let the night-winds touch thy brow 

With the heat of my burning sigh, 
And melt thee to hear the vow 

Of a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold ! 

My steps are nightly driven. 

By the fever in my breast, 
To hear from thy lattice breathed 

The word that shall give me rest. 
Open the door of thy heart. 

And open thy chamber door. 
And my kisses shall teach thy lips 

The love that shall fade no more 
Till the sun grows cold. 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold ! 



279 



280 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



THE .SONG OF THE CAMP. 

" Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 

The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated guns of the camps allied 

Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff. 
Lay grim and threatening under ; 

And the tawny mound of the Malakoff 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. A guardsman said, 
"We storm the forts to-morrow. 

Sing while we may ; another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery's side. 

Below the smoking cannon : 
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, and not of fame ; 

Forgot was Britain's glory : 
Each heart recalled a different name. 

But all sang " Annie Laurie." 

Voice after voice caught up the song, 

Until its tender passion 
Eose like an anthem, rich and strong, — 

Their battle-eve confession. 

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, 

But, as the song grew louder. 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 281 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers. 

And once again a fire of hell 

Ramed on the Russian quarters, 
With scream of shot, and burst of shell, 

And bellowing of the mortars ! 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer, dumb and gory ; 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of " Annie Laurie." 

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 

Your truth and valor wearing ; 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 

The loving are the daring. 



FROM "THE PINES." 

Ancient Pines, 
Ye bear no record of the years of man. 
Spring is your sole historian, — Spring that paints 
These savage shores with hues of Paradise ; 
That decks your branches with a fresher green, 
And through your lonely far canadas pours 
Her floods of bloom, rivers of opal dye 
That wander down to lakes and widening seas 
Of blossom and of fragrance, — laughing Spring, 
That with her wanton blood refills her veins, 
And weds ye to your juicy youth again 
With a new ring, the while your rifted bark 
Drops odorous tears. Your knotty fibres yield 



282 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

To the light touch of her unfailing pen, 

As freely as the lupin's violet cup. 

Ye keep, close-locked, the memories of her stay. 

As in their shells the avelon^s keep 

Morn's rosy flush and moonlight's pearly glow. 

The wild northwest that from Alaska sweeps 

To drown Point Lobos with the icy scud 

And white sea-foam, may rend your boughs and leave 

Their blasted antlers tossing in the gale ; 

Your steadfast hearts are mailed against the shock, 

And on their annual tablets naught inscribe 

Of such rude visitation. Ye are still 

The simple children of a guiltless soil. 

And in your natures show the sturdy grain 

That passion cannot jar, nor force relax. 

Nor aught but sweet and kindly airs compel 

To gentler mood. No disappointed heart 

Has sighed its bitterness beneath your shade, 

No angry spirit ever came to make 

Your silence its confessional ; no voice. 

Grown harsh in Crime's great market-place, the world, 

Tainted Avith blasphemy your evening hush. 

And aromatic air. The deer alone, — 

The ambushed hunter that brings down the deer, 

The fisher wandering on the misty shore 

To watch sea-lions wallow in the flood, — 

The shout, the sound of hoofs that chase and fly. 

When swift vaqueros, dashing through the herds, 

Eide down the angry bull, — perchance, the song 

Some Indian heired of long-forgotten sires, — 

Disturb your solemn chorus. 



WENDELL PIIILLIPH. 283 



[b. Boston, Massachusetts, November 29, ISll. d. February 2, 1884.] 
THE DUTY OF SCHOLARSHIP. 

Fifty millions of men God gives us to mould; burning 
questions, keen debate, great interests trying to vindicate 
their right to be, sad wrongs brought to the bar of 
public judgment, — these are the people's schools. ^^^ ^^^^ 
Timid scholarship either shrinks from sharing in j^^^^iooi 
these agitations, or denounces them as vulgar and 
dangerous interference by incompetent hands with matters 
above them. A chronic distrust of the people pervades the 
book-educated class of the North; they shrink from the 
free speech which is God's normal school for educating 
men, throwing upon them the grave responsibility of de- 
ciding great questions, and so lifting them to a higher level 
of intellectual and moral life. Trust the people — the wise 
and the ignorant, the good and the bad — with the gravest 
questions, and in the end you educate the race ; while you 
secure, not perfect institutions, not necessarily good ones, 
but the best institutions possible while human nature is the 
basis and the only material to build with. 

Men are educated and the State uplifted by allowing all 
— every one — to broach all their mistakes and advocate all 
their errors. 

The community that will not protect its humblest, most 
ignorant, and most hated member in the free utterance of 
his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang 
of slaves ! 

Anarcharsis went into the Archon's court at Athens, 
heard a case argued by the great men of that city, and saw 
the vote by five hundred men. Walking in the streets, 



284 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

some one asked liim, "What do you think of Athenian 
liberty ? " "I think/' said he, " wise men argue cases, and 
fools decide them." Just what that timid scholar, two 
thousand years ago, said in the streets of Athens, that 
which calls itself scholarship here says to-day of popular 
agitation, — that it lets wise men argue questions and fools 
decide them. But that Athens where fools decided the 
gravest questions of policy and of right and wrong, where 
property you had gathered wearily to-day might be wrung 
from you by the caprice of the mob to-morrow, — that very 
Athens probably secured the greatest amount of human hap- 
piness and nobleness of its era; invented art, and sounded 
for us the depths of philosophy. God lent to it the largest 
intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet the 
mountain-peaks of the Old World : while Egypt, the hunker 
conservative of antiquity, where nobody dared to differ from 
the priest, or to be wiser than his grandfather ; where men 
pretended to be alive, though swaddled in the grave-clothes 
of creed and custom as close as their mummies were in linen, 
— that Egypt is hid in the tomb it inhabited, and the in- 
tellect Athens has trained for us digs to-day those ashes to 
find out what buried and forgotten hunkerism knew and 

did 

Suppose that universal suffrage endangered peace and 
threatened property. There is something more valuable 
than wealth, there is something more sacred than peace. 
As Humboldt says, " The finest fruit earth holds up to its 
Maker is a man." To ripen, lift, and educate a man is the 
first duty. Trade, law, learning, science, and religion are 
only the scaffolding wherewith to build a man. Despotism 
looks down into the poor man's cradle, and knows it can 
crush resistance and curb ill will. Democracy sees the 
ballot in that baby hand; and selfishness bids her put in- 
tegrity on one side of those baby footsteps and intelligence 
on the other, lest her own hearth be in peril. Thank God for 
his method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share 
all their blessin,<js with the humblest soul he gives to their 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 285 

keeping ! The American should cherish as serene a faith 
as his fathers had. Instead of seeking a coward safety by 
battening down the hatches, and putting men back into 
chains, he should recognize that God places him in this peril 
that he may work out a noble security by concentrating all 
moral forces to lift this weak, rotting, and dangerous mass 
into sunlight and health. The fathers touched their highest 
level when, with stout-hearted and serene faith, they trusted 
God that it was safe to leave men with all the. rights he 
gave them. Let us be worthy of their blood, and save 
this sheet-anchor of the race, — universal suffrage, — God's 
church, God's school, God's method of gently binding men 
into commonwealths, in order that they may at last melt 
into brothers. 



286 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



I^ntrg SHarti ISeecfjer. 

[b. Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24, 1813. d. March 8, 1887.] 

STRENGTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

If you measure a man by the skill that he can exhibit, 
and the fruit of it, there is great distinction between one and 

another. Men are not each worth the same thing 
The Success ^^q society. All men cannot think with a like 
Democrac value, nor work with a like product. And if you 

measure man as a producing creature — that is, in 
his secular relations — men are not alike valuable. But 
when you measure men on their spiritual side, and in their 
affectional relations to God and the eternal world, the low- 
est man is so immeasurable in value that you cannot make 
any practical difference between one man and another. 
Although, doubtless, some are vastly above, the lowest and 
least goes beyond your powers of conceiving, and your 
power of measuring. This is the root idea, which, if not 
recognized, is yet operative. It is the fundamental princi- 
ple of our American scheme, that is, Man is above nature. 
Man, by virtue of his original endowment and affiliation to 
the Eternal Father, is superior to every other created thing. 
There is nothing to be compared with man. All govern- 
ments are from him and for him, and not over him and 
upon him. All institutions are not his masters, but his 
servants. All days, all ordinances, all usages, come to min- 
ister to the chief and the king, — God's son, man; of whom 
God only is master. Therefore he is to be thoroughly 
enlarged, thoroughly empowered by development, and then 
thoroughly trusted. This is the American idea, — for we 
stand in contrast with the world in holding and teaching it ; 
that men, having been once thoroughly educated, are to be 
absolutely trusted. 



HENRY WARD B EEC HER. 287 

The education of the common people follows, then, as a 
necessity. They ate to be fitted to govern. Since all 
things are from them and for them, they must be educated 
to their function, to their destiny. No pains are spared, 
we know, in Europe, to educate princes and nobles who are 
to govern. No expense is counted too great, in Europe, to 
prepare the governing classes for their function. America 
has her governing class, too ; and that governing class is 
the whole people. It is a slower work, because it is so 
much larger. It is never carried so high, because there 
is so much more of it. It is easy to lift up a crowned 
class. It is not easy to lift up society from the very foun- 
dation. That is the work of centuries. And, therefore, 
though we have not an education so deep nor so high as it 
is in some other places, we have it broader than it is any- 
where else in the world ; and we have learned that, for ordi- 
nary affairs, intelligence among the common people is better 
than treasures of knowledge among particular classes of 
the people. School books do more for the country than 
encyclopedias. 

And so there comes up the American conception of a 
common people as an order of nobility, or as standing in 
the same place to us that orders of nobility stand to other 
peoples. Not that, after our educated men and men of 
genius are counted out, we call all that remain the common 
people. The whole community, top and bottom and inter- 
mediate, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, 
the leaders and the followers, constitute with us the com- 
monwealth ; in which laws spring from the people, admin- 
istration conforms to their wishes, and the}' are made the 
final judges of every interest of the State. 

In America, there is not one single element of civilization 
that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion. 
Art, law, administration, policy, reformation of morals, 
religious teaching, all derive, in our form of society, the 
most potent influence from the common people. For al- 
though the common people are educated in preconceived 



288 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

notions of religion, the great intuitions and instincts of the 
heart of man rise up afterwards, and in their turn influence 
back. So there is action and reaction. 

It is this very thing that has led men that are educated, 
in Europe, to doubt the stability of our nation. Owing to 
a strange ignorance on their part, our glory has seemed to 
them our shame, and our strength has seemed to them our 
weakness, and our invincibility has seemed to them our 
disaster and defeat. 

This impression of Europeans has been expressed in 
England in language that has su.rprised us, and that one 
day will surprise them. We know more of it in England 
because the English language is our mother tongue, and we 
are more concerned to know Avhat England thinks of us, 
than any other nation. 

But it is impossible that nations educated into sympathy 
with strong governments, and Avith the side of those that 
govern, should sympathize with the governed. In this 
country the sympathy goes with the governed, and not with 
the governing, as much as in the other countries it goes 
with the governing, and not with the governed. And 
abroad, they are measuring by a false rule, and by a home- 
bred and one-sided sympathy. 

It is impossible for men who have not seen it to under- 
stand that there is no society possible, that will bear such 
expansion and contraction, such strains and burdens, as a 
society made up of free educated common people, with 
democratic institutions. It has been supposed that such 
a society was the most unsafe, and the least capable of con- 
trol of any. But whether tested by external pressure, or, as 
now, by the most wondrous internal evils, an educated demo- 
cratic people is the strongest government that can be made 
on the face of the earth. 

In no other form of society is it so safe to set discussion 
at large. Nowhere else is there such safety in the midst 
of apparent conflagration. Nowhere else is there such entire 
rule, when there seems to be such entire anarchy. 



HENRY WARD BE EC HER. 289 

A foreigner would think, pending a presidential election, 
that the end of the world had come. The people roar and 
dash like an ocean. '' ISTo government," he would say, " was 
ever strong enough to hold such wild and tumultuous enthu- 
siasm, and zeal, and rage." True. There is not a govern- 
ment strong enough to hold them. Nothing but self-govern- 
ment will do it : that will. Educate men to take care of 
themselves, individually and in masses, and then let the 
winds blow ; then let the storms fall ; then let excitements 
burn, and men will learn to move freely upon each other, 
as do drops of water in the ocean. Our experience from 
generation to generation has shown that, though we may 
have fantastic excitements; though the whole land may 
seem to have swung from its moorings on a sea of the 
wildest agitation, we have only to let the silent-dropping 
paper go into the box, and that is the end of the commotion. 
To-day, the flames mount to heaven ; and on every side you 
hear the most extravagant prophecies and the fiercest objur- 
gations ; and both sides know that, if they do not succeed, 
the end of the world will have come. But to-morrow the 
vote is declared, and each side go home laughing, to take 
hold of the plough and the spade ; and they are satisfied 
that the nation is safe after all. 



290 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Joijtt ffiotifrru ^axr, 

[b. Highgate, Vermont, June 2, 1816. d. March 31, 1887.] 
MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 

There's a castle in Spain very charming to see, 

Though built without money or toil ; 
Of this handsome estate I am owner in fee, 

And paramount lord of the soil ; 
And oft as I may I'm accustomed to go 
And live, like a king, in my Spanish Chateau. 

There's a dame most bewitchingly rounded and ripe 

Whose wishes are never absurd ; 
Who doesn't object to my smoking a pipe, 

Nor insist on the ultimate word ; 
In short, she's the pink of perfection, you know ; 
And she lives, like a queen, in my Spanish Chateau ! 

I've a family too ; the delightfulest girls. 

And a bevy of beautiful boys ; 
All quite the reverse of those juvenile churls 

Whose pleasure is mischief and noise ; 
No modern Cornelia might venture to show 
Such jewels as those in my Spanish Chateau ! 

I have servants who seek their contentment in mine. 

And always mind what they are at ; 
Who never embezzle the sugar and wine, 

And slander the innocent cat ; 
Neither saucy, nor careless, nor stupidly slow 
Are the servants who wait in my Spanish Chateau ! 



JOHN GODFREY SAXE. 291 

I have pleasant companions ; most affable folk ; 

And each with the heart of a brother ; 
Keen wits, who enjoy an antagonist's joke, 

And beauties who're fond of each other ; 
Such people, indeed, as you never may know, 
Unless you should come to my Spanish Chateau ! 

I have friends, whose commission for wearing the name 

In kindness unfailing is shown ; 
Who pay to another the duty they claim, 

And deem his successes their own ; 
Who joy in his gladness, and weep at his woe ; 
You'll find them (where else ?) in my Spanish Chateau ! 

si sic semper ! I oftentimes say 
(Though 'tis idle, I know, to complain), 

To think that again I must force me away 

From my beautiful castle in Spain ! 
Ah ! woiild that my stars had determined it so 

1 might live the year round in my Spanish Chateau ! 



292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



lEWm Peres Smijipple, 

[b. Gloucester, Massachusetts, March 8, 1819. d. June 16, 1886.] 
WEBSTER AND CALHOUN. 

If we compare AVebster with Calhoun, we shall find in 
both the same firm mental grasp of principles, the same 
oversight of the means of popularity, and the 
•^^® , same ungraceful and almost sullen self-assertion, at 

Mind, periods when policy would have dictated a more 

facile accommodativeness. Their intellects, though 
l)otli in some degree entangled by local interests, and opin- 
ions, have inherent differences, visible at a glance. Web- 
ster's mind has more massiveness than Calhoun's, is richer 
in culture and variety of faculty, and is gifted with a wider 
sweep of argumentation ; but it is not so completely com- 
j)acted with character, and has, accordingly, less inflexible 
and untiring persistence toward an object. Both are com- 
paratively unimpressible, but Webster's understanding rec- 
ognizes and includes facts which his imagination may refuse 
to assimilate ; while Calhoun arrogantly ignores everything 
which contradicts his favorite opinions. The mind of Web- 
ster, weighty, solid, and capacious, looks before and after ; 
by its insight reads principles in events, by its foresight 
reads events in principles ; and, arching gloriously over all 
the phenomena of a widely complex subject of contemplar 
tion, views things, not simply, but in their multitudinous 
relations ; yet the very comprehension of his vision makes 
him somewhat timid, and his moderation accordingly lacks 
the crowning grace of moral audacity. Calhoun has audac- 
ity, but lacks comprehensiveness. . . . 

If we carefully study the speeches of Webster and Cal- 
houn, in one of those great Congressional battles where they 



EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE. 293 

were fairly pitted against each other, we shall find that 
Webster's mind darts beneath the smooth and rapid stream 
of his opponent's deductive argument at a certain point, — 
fastens fatally on some phrase, or fact, or admission, in 
which the fallacy lurks, — and then devotes his reply to a 
searching analysis and logical overthrow of that, without 
heeding the rest. Calhoun, of course, has the ready re- 
joinder that the thing demolished is twisted out of its rela- 
tions ; and then, with admirable control of his face, proceeds 
to dip into Webster's inductive argument, to extract some 
fact or principle which is indissolubly related to what goes 
before and comes after, and thus really misrepresents the 
reasoning he seemingly answers. To overthrow Calhoun 
you have, like Napoleon at Wagram, only to direct a tre- 
mendous blow at the centre ; to overthrow Webster, like 
Napoleon at Borodino, you must rout the whole line. 

In the style of the two men we have, perhaps, the best 
expression of their character; for style, it has been well 
said, " is the measure of power, — as the waves of the sea 
answer to the winds that call them up." Webster's style 
varies Avith the moods of his mind, — short, crisp, biting, 
in sarcasm; luminous and even in statement; rigid, con- 
densed, massive, in argumentation ; lofty and resounding 
in feeling; fierce, hot, direct, overwhelming, in passion. 
Calhoun's has the uniform vigor and clear precision of a 
spoken essay. 



294 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Bgron jForrrut!)c SHillson. 

[b. Alleghany County, New York, April 10, 1837. d. February 2, 1867.] 

THE LAST WATCH. 

The stars shine down through the shivering boughs, 

And the moonset sparks against the spire ; 
There is not a light in a neighbor's house, 
Save one that burneth low, 
And seemeth almost spent ! 
With shadowy forms in dark attire 
Flickering in it to and fro, 
As if in pain and doubt — 
And heads bow'd down in tears ! 

Hark ! 
Was there not lament ? — 
Behold, behold the light burns out ! 
The picture disappears ! 

Ye who with such sleepless sleight. 
In the chamber out of sight, 

Whispering low, 

To and fro, 
Your swift needles secretly 
At the dead of night do ply, — 

What is it that ye sew ? 

''Hark! hark! 
Heard ye not the sounds aloof, 
As of winds or Avings that swept the roof ? 
Band of heavenly voices blending. 
Choir of seraphim ascending ? 
Hark! hark! 



BYRON FORCE YTHE WILL80N. 295 

Away ! away ! 
Behold, behold it is the day ! 
Bear her softly out of the door ; 
And upward, upward, upward soar.! " 



THE ESTRAY. 

" Now tell me, my merry woodman ! 

Why standest so aghast ? " — 
" My Lord ! — 'twas a beautiful creature 

That hath but just gone past ! " — 

" A creature — what kind of a creature ? " — 
" Nay, now, but I do not know ! " — 

" Humph ! — what did it make you think of ? " ■ 
" The sunshine or the snow." ^- 

" I shall overtake my horse then." 

The woodman open'd his eye : 
The gold fell all around him, 

And a rainbow spanned the sky. 



AUTUMN SONG. 

In Spring the Poet is glad. 

And in Summer the Poet is gay ; 
But in Autumn the Poet is sad. 

And has something sad to say : 

Por the Wind moans in the Wood, 

And the Leaf drops from the Tree ; 
And the cold Rain falls on the graves of the Good, 

And the Mist comes up from the Sea : 



296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And the Autumn Songs of the Poet's soul 
Are set to the passionate grief 

Of Winds that sough and Bells that toll 
The Dirge of the Falling Leaf. 



DAVID ATWOOD WASSON. 297 



©abtti ^tbjooti SEasson. 

[b. West Brooksville, Maine, May 14, 1823. d. January 21, 1887.] 

ALL'S WELL. 

Sweet-voiced Hope, thy fine discourse 

Foretold not lialf life's good to me : 
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force 
To show how sweet it is to be ! 

Thy witching dream 

And pictured scheme 
To match the fact still want the power : 

Thy promise brave 

From birth to grave 
Life's boon may beggar in an hour. 

Ask and receive, — 'tis sweetly said : 
Yet what to plead for, know I not ; 
For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped, 
And aye to thanks returns my thought. 

If I would pray, 

I've naught to say 
But this, that God may be God still; 

For him to live 

Is still to give. 
And sweeter than my wish his will. 

wealth of life beyond all bound ! 

Eternity each moment given ! 
What plummet may the Present sound ? 
Who promises a future heaven ? 
Or glad, or grieved, 
Oj)pressed, relieved, 



298 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In blackest night, or brightest day, 

Still pours the flood 

Of golden good, 
And more than heartful fills me aye. 

My wealth is common ; I possess 

No petty province, but the whole : 
What's mine alone is mine far less 
Than treasure shared by every soul. 

Talk not of store, 

Millions or more, — 
Of values which the purse may hold, — 

But this divine ! 

I own the mine 
Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold. 

I have a stake in every star, 

In every beam that fills the day ; 
All hearts of men my coffers are, 
My ores arterial tides convey ; 

The fields, the skies. 

And sweet replies 
Of thought to thought are my gold-dust, ■ 

The oaks, the brooks, 

And speaking looks 
Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust. 

Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow 

For him who lives above all years. 
Who all-immortal makes the Now, 
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears : 
His life's a hymn 
The seraphim 
Might hark to hear or help to sing, 
And to his soul 
The boundless whole 
Its bounty all doth daily bring. 



DAVID AT WOOD WASSON. 299 

" All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith ; 

" The wealth I am, must then become : 
Eicher and richer, breath by breath, — 
Immortal gain, immortal room ! " 

And since all his 

Mine also is, 
Life's gift outruns my fancies far, 

And drowns the dream 

In larger stream. 
As morning drinks the morninfj star. 



300 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



[b. Alexandria, Virginia, March 8, 1813.] 
WRITTEN AT SORRENTO. 

The wild waves madly dasli and roar, 

In thnnder-throbs upon the beach ; 
Their broad white hands upon the shore 

They struggle evermore to reach. 

Up through the cavernous rocks amain, 

With short, hoarse growl, they plunge and leap, 

Like an arin'd host, again and again, 
Battering some castellated steep. 

Great pulses of the ocean heart. 

Beating from out immensity ! 
What mystic news would ye impart 

From the great spirit of the sea ? 

Ever, in still-increasing force. 

Earnest as cries of love or hate. 
Your large and eloquent discourse 

Is mighty as the march of fate. 

I sit alone on the glowing sand, 

Eill'd with the music of your speech. 

And only half may understand 

The wondrous lore that ye would teach. 

The sea-weed and the shells are wise. 

And versed in your broad Sanscrit tongue ; 

The rocks need not our ears and eyes 
To comprehend the undor-song. 



CHRISTOPHER PEARSE C RANCH. 301 

The ocean and the shore are one ; 

The rocks and trees that hang above, 
The birds and insects in the sun, 

Are link'd in one strong tie of love. 

Woukl that I might with freedom be 

A seer into your hidden truth, 
Joining your firm fraternity, 

To drink with you perpetual youth ! 



302 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Eobrrt Crail Spcnce ^.oiuelL 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, October 8, 1816.] 
LOVE DISPOSED OF. 

Here goes Love ! Now, cut him clear, 

A weight about his neck : 
If he linger longer here, 

Our ship will be a wreck. 
Overboard ! Overboard ! 

Down let him go ! 
In the deep he may sleep. 

Where the corals grow. 

He said he'd woo the gentle breeze, 

A bright tear in her eye ; 
But she was false or hard to please, 

Or he has told a lie. 
Overboard ! Overboard ! 

Down in the sea 
He may find a truer mind. 

Where the mermaids be. 

He sang us many a merry song. 

While the breeze was kind : 
But he has been lamenting long 

The falseness of the wind. 
Overboard ! Overboard ! 

Under the wave. 
Let him sing where smooth shells ring 

In the ocean's cave. 



ROBERT TRAIL S PENCE LOWELL. 303 

He may struggle ; he may weep ; 

We'll be stem and cold ; 
His grief will find, within the deep, 

More tears than can be told. 
He has gone overboard ! 

We will float on ; 
We shall find a truer wind, 

Now that he is gone. 



304 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Efjfotiore Sl^intfjrop. 

[b. New Haven, Connecticut, September 22, 1828. d. June 10, 1861.] 
A GALLOP OF THREE. 

It was a vast desert level wliere we were riding. Here 
and there a scanty tuft of grass appeared, to prove that Na- 
ture had tried her benign experiment, and wafted 
John Brent, seeds hither to let the scene be verdant, if it would. 
Nature had failed. The land refused any mantle 
over its brown desolation. The soil was disintegrated, igne- 
ous rock, line and well beaten down as the most thoroughly 
laid Macadam. 

Behind was the rolling region where the Great Trail 
passes ; before and far away, the faint blue of the Sierra. 
Not a bird sang in the hot noon ; not a cricket chirped. No 
sound except the beat of our horses' hoofs on the pavement. 
We rode side by side, taking our strides together. It was 
a waiting race. The horses travelled easily. They learned, 
as a horse with a self-possessed rider will, that they were 
not to waste strength in rushes. " Spend, but waste not," 
— not a slip, not a breath, in that gallop for life ! This 
must be our motto. 

We three rode abreast over the sere, brown plain on our 
gallop to save and to slay. 

Far — ah, how terribly dim and distant ! — was the Sierra, 
a slowly lifting cloud. Slowly, slowly they lifted, those 
gracious heights, while we sped over the harsh levels of the 
desert. Harsh levels, abandoned or unvisited by verdancy. 
But better so ; there was no long herbage to check our 
great pace over the smooth race-course ; no thickets here to 
baffle us ; no forests to mislead. 

We galloped abreast, — Armstrong at the right. His 



THEODORE WIN THRO P. 305 

weird, gaunt Avliite held his own with the best of us. No 
Avhip, no spur, for that deathly creature. He went as if his 
master's purpose were stirring him through and through. 
That stern intent made his sinews steel, and put an agony 
of power into every stride. The man never stirred, save 
sometimes to put a hand to that bloody blanket bandage 
across his head and temple. He had told his story, he had 
spoken his errand, he breathed not a word ; but, with his 
lean, pallid face set hard, his gentle blue eyes scourged of 
their kindliness, and fixed upon those distant mountains 
where his vengeance lay, he rode on like a relentless fate. 

Next in the line I galloped. my glorious black ! The 
great, killing pace seemed mere playful canter to him, — 
such as one might ride beside a timid girl, thrilling with 
her first free dash over a flowery common, or a golden beach 
between sea and shore. But from time to time he surged a 
little forward with his great shoulders, and gave a mighty 
writhe of his body, while his hind legs came lifting his 
flanks under me, and telling of the giant reserve of speed 
and power he kept easily controlled. Then his ear would go 
back, and his large brown eye, with its purple-black pupil, 
would look round at my bridle hand, and then into my eye, 
saying as well as words could have said it, " This is mere 
sport, my friend and master. You do not know me. I 
have stuff in me that you do not dream. Say the word, and 
I can double this, treble it. Say the word ! let me show 
you how I can spurn the earth." Then, with the lightest 
love-pressure on the snaffle, I would say, "Not yet! not 
yet ! Patience, my noble friend ! Your time will come." 

At the left rode Brent, our leader. He knew the region ; 
he made the plan ; he had the hope ; his was the ruling 
passion, — stronger than brotherhood, than revenge. Love 
made him leader of that galloping three. His iron-gray 
went grandly, with white mane flapping the air like a signal- 
flag of reprieve. Eager hope and kindling purpose made 
the rider's face more beautiful than ever. 

He seemed to behold Sidney's motto written on the 



306 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

golden haze before him, " Viam aut inveniam aut faciam." 
I felt my heart grow great when I looked at his calm fea- 
tures and caught his assuring smile, — a gay smile but for 
the dark, fateful resolve beneath it. And when he launched 
some stirring word of cheer, and shook another ten of sec- 
onds out of the gray's mile, even Armstrong's countenance 
grew less deathly, as he turned to our leader in silent 
response. Brent looked a fit chieftain for such a wild charge 
over the desert waste, with his buckskin hunting-shirt and 
leggins with flaring fringes, his otter cap and eagle's plume, 
his bronzed face, with its close, brown beard, his elate head, 
and his seat like a centaur. 

So we galloped three abreast, neck and neck, hoof with 
hoof, steadily quickening our pace over the sere width of 
the desert. 

We must make the most of the levels. Kougher work, 
cruel obstacles were before. All the wild, triumphant music 
I had ever heard came and sang in my ears to the flinging 
cadence of the resonant feet, tramping on hollow arches of 
volcanic rock, over great, vacant chasms underneath. Sweet 
and soft around us melted the hazy air of October, and its 
warm, flickering currents shook like a veil of gauzy gold 
between us and the blue bloom of the mountains far away, 
but nearing now and lifting step by step. 

On we galloped, the avenger, the friend, and the lover, on 
our errand, to save and to slay. 



HENRY TIMROD. 307 



[b. CharlcBton, South Carolina, December 8, 1829. d. October 6, 1867/ 

THE UNKNOWN DEAD. 

The rain is plashing on my sill, 

But all the winds of Heaven are still ; 

And so it falls with that dull sound 

Which thrills us in the churchyard ground, 

When the first spadeful drops like lead 

Upon the coifin of the dead. 

Beyond my streaming window-pane 

I cannot see the neighboring vane, 

Yet from its old familiar tower 

The bell comes, muffled, through the shower. 

What strange and unsuspected link 

Of feeling touch'd has made me think — 

While with a vacant soul and eye 

I watch that gray and stony sky — 

Of nameless graves on battle-plains, 

Washed by a single winter's rains, 

Where, some beneath Virginian hills. 

And some by green Atlantic rills. 

Some by the waters of the West, 

A myriad unknown heroes rest ? 

Ah ! not the chiefs who, dying, see 

Their flags in front of victory. 

Or, at their life-blood's noblest cost 

Paid for a battle nobly lost. 

Claim from their monumental beds 

The bitterest tears a nation sheds. 

Beneath yon lonely mound — the spot 

By all save some fond few forgot — 



308 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Lie the true martyrs of the fight, 

Which strikes for freedom and for right. 

Of them, their patriot zeal and pride, 

The lofty faith that with them died, 

No grateful page shall further tell 

Than that so many bravely fell ; 

And we can only dimly guess 

What worlds of all this world's distress. 

What utter woe, despair, and dearth. 

Their fate has brought to many a hearth. 

Just such a sky as this should weep 

Above them, always, where they sleep ; 

Yet, haply, at this very hour, 

Their graves are like a lover's bower ; 

And Nature's self, with eyes unwet. 

Oblivious of the crimson debt 

To which she owes her April grace. 

Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place. 



JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 309 



3of)n 3Estcn (JToofee, 

[b. Winchester, Virginia, November 3, 1830. d. September 27, 1886.] 
AN ADVENTURE. 

The soldier looked admiringly at the trees just putting 
forth their tender leaves, the grass just beginning to peep 
up and lie a verdant background for a thousand 
flowers, the little streams dancing along joyously ^^® , 
in the gay sunlight. He listened, Avith pleasure, Comedians, 
to the small birds which chirruped gayly, and 
plumed their wings in the fresh bracing wind of March, and 
went rising and falling on the air-billows, predicting summer 
and warmth. All pleased him. On the day before there 
had been quite a heavy fall of rain, and all the streams 
were swollen, and overflowed their banks. The Captain 
had more than one of these to cross in his path, but seemed 
to attach very little importance to them. 

He allowed the water to splash his boots with great in- 
difference, and rode on carelessly, humming a merry song 
all about Marshal Soubise and the great Frederic. The 
soldier's voice was excellent, and he gave the " Tra la ! tra 
la ! " with great force and spirit — completely to his own 
satisfaction, indeed. 

He came thus, singing merrily, and looking around him, 
with the roving and curious eye of the partisan, to one of 
those hollows in the hills, such as are found freqviently in 
all portions of Virginia. The road, which had for a mile 
or two traversed a species of wooded upland, now descended 
abruptly into the gorge, and mounted the thickly firred 
declivity beyond. Through the gorge ran a deep stream, 
which, swollen by the rain, had overflowed its banks, and 
now rushed on under swaying pine bovighs, with a merry 
brawl, which sounded far from unpleasantly. 



310 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The sunshine gilded the rushing stream, the bold hill 
beyond, the thick firs, and rude masses of rock : and so 
picturesque was the scene, that Captain Ralph paused a 
moment, and looked at it admiringly. 

His fit of admiration soon subsided, however, and, touch- 
ing his horse lightly, he passed down the steep road, having 
resumed his song with new spirit. Selim hesitated a mo- 
ment, as he was about to place his delicate hoof in the 
water. 

'' Tra la ! tra la ! " came from the soldier's lungs lustily ; 
and apparently satisfied that this signified " Go on ! " the 
beautiful animal plunged into the water. In an instant his 
back was covered, and Captain Ralph Waters experienced a 
disagreeable sensation about the lower part of his person. 

"Morbleu ! We are in for it ! " he cried, drawing up his 
knees, despairingly. 

Selim snorted, and began to swim. 

" Right ! " cried the soldier. " Go on, comrade ! What 
is a trifling Avetting ? " 

And in defiance of the obstacle, the Captain began again, 
more lustily than before, to troll his ditty. Selim swam 
vigorously, dashed the water from his glowing chest, and, 
by the time his master had arrived at the chorus of his 
song, reached the opposite bank. 

He emerged from the water like a statue of glittering 
ebony, and the soldier, with a careless shake of his clothes, 
was about to proceed onward, when suddenly his attention 
was attracted to the opposite declivity, which, as we have 
said, was singularly steep and rugged. 

Down this road there now came, at full speed, a chariot 
drawn by four spirited horses, who had plainly run away, 
for the coachman in vain endeavored to check them, by 
vigorously tightening the reins, and uttering violent cries. 

The animals, with their rosetted heads fixed obstinately 
sidewise, took no notice of these signs, and swept onward 
at a gallop down the declivity toward the stream, dragging 
the huge chariot, like a mere nutshell, rudely over the stones. 



JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 311 

At every bound the framework cracked ; at every stone the 
unwiehly vehicle rumbled and groaned. 

" Parbleu ! here will be a smash ! " cried the Captain, as 
the animals rushed towards him. " In an instant they will 
be buried in that stream ! " 

At the same moment, the head of a gentleman emerged 
from the door, and over his shoulders were seen the affrighted 
faces of two young girls. 

"Women, morbleu!" cried the soldier. "To the rescue!" 

And as the furious animals rushed headlong towards the 
stream, he caught, with a powerful hand, the bridle of the 
leader next to him, and exerting all his strength, made him 
swerve. 

Selim reared and fell upon his haunches, as the hot mouth 
of the animal struck his neck, and the Captain, clinging 
like a vice to the rein he had grasped, was drawn half from 
his saddle. 

The other leader, checked thus suddenly, reared, and his 
hoof struck the Captain's arm heavily. 

In another instant he would have been hurled, in spite of 
his great strength and activity, beneath the feet of the 
animals, when the gentleman whose head he had seen, and 
the coachman, both came to his assistance, and the coach- 
horses, still struggling, panting, and furious, were subdued. 

The Captain rose erect in his saddle again, and seeing the 
terrified faces of the ladies at the window of the chariot, 
took off his hat with his left hand, and made an elegant 
bow. 

"Excuse my rudeness, Mesdemoiselles," he said; "that 
devil of an anijnal has nearly broken my right arm, par- 
bleu ! " 

And the soldier made a wry face, as he tried to move it. 

" I owe you a great many thanks, sir," said the gentleman, 
who had now abandoned the horses to the coachman. " We 
should have run great risk here — indeed, I may say that 
you saved our lives." 

" Not at all, not at all — no thanks," said the Captain ; 



312 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" but faith, you would have got a wettiug, sir ; and I very 
much fear those charming young ladies would have had 
their silks and velvets utterly demolished. Upon reflection, 
I am convinced that so far they owe me thanks." 

" Pray let us know, then, whom to return them to," said 
the gentleman, with a courteous smile. 

"To Captain Eali^h Waters — sometimes called the Chev- 
alier Waters, and the Chevalier La Riviere, by the rascally 
French, who translate everything, parbleu ! " said the sol- 
dier. 

" Then, Captain, myself and my daughters are deeply in 
your debt. My name is Lee ; and I insist upon your going 
with us to my house at Riverhead, to have your bruise 
dressed." 

" My bruise ? Oh, yes ! I had forgotten it. But, ex- 
cellent sir, I do not attach importance to these trifles. A 
bruise more or less ? Basta ! 'tis nothing. Still, I will 
gladly go with you, for I am dying of ennui." 

" Thanks, sir. Now let us see to the means of returning." 

The coachman soon reassured Mr. Lee upon this point. 
The horses were now quiet, he said, and would go along 
easily. They could not cross Duck Creek, as it was too 
deej) ; but the horses could be turned, and they could take 
the cross-road to Riverhead. So the horses were turned, 
and Mr. Lee entering the carriage, the huge vehicle rolled 
up the hill which it had descended so rapidly, and took the 
direction of Riverhead, Captain Ralph Waters following 
composedly by the window, and, when not exchanging com- 
pliments with the ladies, continuing to hum in a low voice, 
his " Tra la ! tra la ! " 



JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 313 



THE ROSE OF GLENGARY. 

" Sliall I sing you one of our old songs ? " 

The soft, pure voice sounded in his ears like some fine 
melody of olden poets ; her frank, kind eyes, as 
she looked at him, soothed and quieted him. Last of the 
Again she was the little laughing star of his Foresters, 
childhood, as when they wandered about over the 
fields — little children — that period so recent, yet which 
seemed so far away, because the opening heart lives long in 
a brief space of time. Again she was to him Little Redbud, 
he to her was the boy playmate, Verty. She had done all 
by a word, — a look, a kind, frank smile, a single glance of 
confiding eyes. He loved her more than ever — yes, a 
thousand times more strongly, and was calm. 

He followed her to the harpsichord, and watched her in 
every movement with quiet happiness ; he seemed to be 
under the influence of a charm. 

" I think I will try and sing the ' Rose of Glengary,' " 
she said, smiling. " You know, Verty, it is one of the old 
songs you loved so much ; and it will make us think of old 
times — in childhood, you know. Though that is not such 
old, old time — at least, for me," added Redbud, with a 
smile more soft and confiding than before. 

" Shall I sing it ? Well, give me the book — the brown- 
backed one." 

The old volume — such as we find to-day in ancient coun- 
try houses, was opened, and Redbud commenced singing. 
The girl sang the sweet ditty with much exj^ression ; and her 
kind, touching voice filled the old homestead with a tender 
melody, such as the autumn time would utter, could its 
spirit become vocal. The clear, tender carol made the place 
fairyland for Verty long years afterwards ; and always he 
seemed to hear her singing when he visited the room. 

Redbud sang, afterwards, more than one of those old 
ditties, — " Jock o' Hazeldean," and " Flowers of the For- 



314 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

est," and many others, — ditties which, for us to-day, seem 
like so many utterances of the fine old days in the far past. 

For, who does not hear them floating above those sweet 
fields of the olden time, — those bright Hesperian gardens, 
where, for us at least, the fruits are all golden, and the airs 
all happy ? 

Beautiful, sad ditties of the brilliant i:)ast ! not he who 
writes would have you lost from memory, for all the modern 
world of music. Kind madrigals ! which have an aroma of 
the former day in all your cadences and dear old-fashioned 
trills — from whose dim ghosts now, in the faded volumes 
stored away in garrets and on upper shelves, we gather 
what you were in the old immemorial years ! Soft melodies 
of another age, that sound still in the present with such 
moving sweetness, one heart at least knows what a golden 
treasure you clasp, and listens thankfully when you deign 
to issue out from silence ; for he finds in you alone — in 
your gracious cadences, your gay or stately voices — what 
he seeks ; the life, and joy, and splendor of the antique day 
sacred to love and memory ! 

And Verty felt the nameless charm of the good old songs, 
warbled by the young girl's sympathetic voice; and more 
than once his wild-wood nature stirred within him, and his 
eyes grew moist. And when she ceased, and the soft carol 
went away to the realm of silence, and was heard no more, 
the young man was a child again, and Eedbud's hand was 
in his own, and all his heart was still. 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 315 



^dtu Hunt Sarfesoiu 

[b. Amherst, Massacbusetts, October 18, 1831. d. August 12, 1885.] 
SPINNING. 

Like a blind spinner in the sun 

I tread my days ; 
I knoAV that all the threads will run 

Appointed ways ; 
I know each day will bring its task, 
And, being blind, no more I ask. 

I do not know the use or name 

Of that I spin ; 
I only know that some one came, 

And laid within 
My hand the thread, and said, " Since you 
Are blind, but one thing you can do." 

Sometimes the threads so rough and fast 

And tangled fly, 
I know wild storms are sweeping past, 

And fear that I 
Shall fall ; but dare not try to find 
A safer place, since I am blind. 

I know not why, but I am sure 

That tint and place, 
In some great fabric to endure 

Past time and race 
My threads will have ; so from the first, 
Though blind, I never felt accurst. 



316 AMERICAN- LITERATURE. 

I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung 

From one short word 
Said over me when I was young, — 

So young, I heard 
It, knowing not that God's name signed 
My brow, and sealed me His, though blind. 

But whether this be seal or sign 

Within, without, 
It matters not. The bond divine 

I never doubt. 
I know He set me here, and still. 
And glad, and blind, I wait His will ; 

But listen, listen, day by day, 

To hear their tread 
Who bear the finished web away. 

And cut the thread. 
And bring Grod's message in the sun, 
" Thou poor blind spinner, work is done." 



TWO TRUTHS. 

" Darling," he said, " I never meant 
To hurt you " ; and his eyes were wet. 

" I would not hurt you for the world : 
Am I to blame if I forget ? " 

" Forgive my selfish tears ! " she cried, 
" Forgive ! I knew that it was not 

Because you meant to hurt me, sweet, — 
I knew it was that you forgot ! " 

But all the same, deep in her heart 
llankled this thought, and rankles yet, 

" When love is at its best, one loves 
So much that he cannot forget." 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 317 



POPPIES ON THE WHEAT. 

Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat, 
A tropic tide of air, with ebb and flow 
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow 
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat 
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet 
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro 
To mark the shore. 

The farmer does not know 
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet. 
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain. 
But I, — I smile to think that days remain 
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet 
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain, 
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet. 
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen Avith the wheat. 



CORONATION. 

At the king's gate the subtle noon 
Wove filmy yellow nets of sun ; 

Into the drowsy snare too soon 
The guards fell one by one. 

Through the king's gate, unquestioned then, 
A beggar went, and laughed, " This brings 

Me chance, at last, to see if men 
Fare better, being kings." 

The king sat bowed beneath his crown, 
Propping his face with listless hand ; 

Watching the hour-glass sifting down 
Too slow its shining sand. 



318 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" Poor man, what woiildst thou have of me ? ' 
The beggar turned, and, pitying, 

Keplied, like one in dream, " Of thee, 
Nothing. I want the king." 

Up rose the king, and from his head 
Shook off the crown and threw it by. 

" man, thou must have known," he said, 
"A greater king than I." 

Through all the gates, unquestioned then. 
Went king and beggar hand in hand. 

Whispered the king, " Shall I know when 
Before his throne I stand ? " 

The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste 
Were wiping from the king's hot brow 

The crimson lines the crown had traced. 
" This is his presence now." 

At the king's gate, the crafty noon 
Unwove its yellow nets of sun ; 

Out of their sleep in terror soon 
The guards waked one by one. 

'* Ho here ! Ho there ! Has no man seen 
The king ? " The cry ran to and fro ; 

Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween, 
The laugh that free men know. 

On the king's gate the moss grew gray ; 

The king came not. They called him dead ; 
And made his eldest son one day 

Slave in his father's stead. 



GEORGE ARNOLD. 319 



0rorse ^rnolti* 

[b. New York, New York, June 24, 1834. d. November 3, 1865.] 
THE MATRON YEAR. 

The leaves that made our forest pathways shady 

Begin to rustle down upon the breeze ; 
The year is fading, like a stately lady 

Who lays aside her youthful vanities ; 
Yet, while the memory of her beauty lingers, 

She cannot wear the livery of the old, 
So Autumn comes, to paint with frosty fingers. 

Some leaves with hues of crimson and of gold. 

The Matron's voice hll'd all the hills and valleys 

With full-toned music, when the leaves were young ; 
While now, in forest dells and garden-alleys, 

A chirping, reedy song at eve is sung ; 
Yet sometimes, too, when sunlight gilds the morning, 

A carol bursts from some half-naked tree. 
As if, her slow but sure decadence scorning. 

She woke again the olden melody. 

With odorous May-buds sweet as youthful pleasures. 

She made her beauty bright and debonair : 
But now, the sad earth yields no floral treasures, 

And twines no roses for the Matron's hair ; 
Still can she not all lovely things surrender ; 

Eight regal is her drapery even now ; — 
Gold, purple, green, inwrought with every splendor, 

And clustering grapes in garlands on her brow. 



320 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In June, she brought us tufts of fragrant clover 

Eife with the wild bee's cheery monotone, 
And, when the earliest bloom was past and over, 

Offer'd us sweeter scents from fields new-mown ; 
Now, upland orchards yield, with pattering laughter, 

Their red-cheek'd bounty to the groaning wain, 
And heavy-laden racks go creeping after. 

Piled high with sheaves of golden-bearded grain. 

Erelong, when all to love and life are clinging. 

And festal holly shines on every wall, 
Her knell shall be the New- Year bells, outringing. 

The drifted snow, her stainless burial-pall ; 
She fades and fails, but proudly and sedately, 

This Matron Year, who has such largess given, 
Her brow still tranquil, and her presence stately. 

As one who, losing earth, holds fast to heaven ! 



HERMAN MELVILLE. 321 



l^erman Helijtlle, 

[b. New Yoi-t, New York, August 1, 1819.] 
A SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE. 

I HAD scarcely beeii aboard of the ship tweiity-four hours, 
when a circumstance occurred, which, although noways pic- 
turesque, is so significant of the state of affairs, 
that I cannot forbear relating it. 

In the first place, however, it must be known, that among 
the crew was a man so excessively ugly, that he went by 
the ironical appellation of "Beauty." He was the ship's 
carpenter; and for that reason was sometimes known by 
his nautical cognomen of " Chips." There was no absolute 
deformity about the man ; he was symmetrically ugly. But 
ill favored as he was in person, Beauty was none the less 
ugly in temper ; but no one could blame him ; his counte- 
nance had soured his heart. Now Jermin and Beauty were 
always at sword's points. The truth was, the latter was 
the only man in the ship whom the mate had never decid- 
edly got the better of ; and hence the grudge he bore him. 
As for Beauty, he prided himself upon talking up to the 
mate, as we shall soon see. 

Toward evening there was something to be done on deck 
and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. 
" Where's that skulk, Chips ? " shouted Jermin down the 
forecastle scuttle. 

" Taking his ease, d'ye see, down here on a chest, if you 
want to know," replied that worthy himself, quietly with- 
drawing his pipe from his mouth. This insolence flung the 
fiery little mate into a mighty rage ; but Beauty said noth- 
ing, puffing away with all the tranquillity imaginable. Here, 
it must be remembered that, never mind what may be the 



322 AMERICAN LITEBATURE. 

provocation, no prudent officer ever dreams of entering a 
ship's forecastle on a hostile visit. If he wants to see any- 
body who happens to be there, and refuses to come up, why 
he must wait patiently until the sailor is willing. The rear 
son is this. The place is very dark ; and nothing is easier 
than to knock one descending on the head, before he knows 
where he is, and a very long while before he ever finds out 
who did it. 

Nobody knew this better than Jermin, and so he con- 
tented himself with looking down the scuttle and storming. 
At last Beauty made some cool observation which set him 
half wild. 

" Tumble on deck," he then bellowed — " come, up with 
you, or I'll jump down and make you." The carpenter 
begged him to go about it at once. 

No sooner said than done : prudence forgotten, Jermin 
was there ; and by a sort of instinct, had his man by the 
throat before he could well see him. One of the men now 
made a rush at him, but the rest dragged him off, protesting 
that they should have fair play. 

" Now, come on deck," shouted the mate, struggling like 
a good fellow to hold the carpenter fast. 

" Take me there," was the dogged answer, and Beauty 
wriggled about in the nervous grasp of the other like a 
couple of yards of boa-constrictor. 

His assailant now undertook to make him up into a com- 
pact bundle, the more easily to transport him. While thus 
occupied. Beauty got his arms loose, and threw him over 
backward. But Jermin quickly recovered himself, when 
for a time they had it every way, dragging each other about, 
bumping their heads against the projecting beams, and re- 
turning each other's blows the first favorable opportunity 
that offered. 

Unfortunately, Jermin at last slipped and fell ; his foe 
seating himself on his chest and keeping him down. Now 
this was one of those situations in which the voice of coun- 
sel, or reproof, comes with peculiar unction. Nor did Beauty 



HERMAN MELVILLE. 323 

let the opportunity slip. But the mate said nothing in 
reply, only foaming at the mouth and struggling to rise. 

Just then a thin tremor of a voice was heard from above. 
It was the captain^ who, happening to ascend to the quarter- 
deck at the commencment of the scuffle, would gladly have 
returned to the cabin, but was prevented by the fear of ridi- 
cule. As the din increased, and it became evident that his 
officer was in serious trouble, he thought it would never do 
to stand leaning over the bulwarks, so he made his appear- 
ance on the forecastle, resolved, as his best policy, to treat 
the matter lightly. 

" Why, why," he began, speaking pettishly, and very fast, 
" what's all this about ? Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin — carpen- 
ter, carpenter ; what are you doing down there ? Come on 
deck ; come on deck." 

Whereupon Doctor Long Ghost cries out in a squeak, 
" Ah ! Miss Guy, is that you ? Now, my dear, go right 
home, or you'll get hurt." 

" Pooh, pooh ! you, sir, whoever you are, I was not speak- 
ing to you ; none of your nonsense. Mr. Jermin, I was 
talking to you : have the kindness to come on deck, sir ; I 
want to see you." 

" And how, in the devil's name, am I to get there ? " cried 
the mate furiously. " Jump down here, Captain Guy, and 
show yourself a man. Let me up, you Chips ! unhand me, 
I say ! Oh ! I'll pay you for this, some day ! Come on, 
Captain Guy ! " 

At this appeal, the poor man was seized with a perfect 
spasm of fidgets. " Pooh, pooh, carpenter ; have done with 
your nonsense ! Let him up, sir ; let him up ! Do you 
hear ? Let Mr. Jermin come on deck ! " 

"Go along with you, Paper Jack," replied Beauty; "this 
quarrel's between the mate and me ; so go aft, where you 
belong ! " 

As the captain once more dipped his head down the scut- 
tle to make answer, from an unseen hand he received, full 
in the face, the contents of a tin can of soaked biscuit and 



324 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tea-leaves. The doctor was not far off just then. Without 
waiting for anything more, the discomfited gentleman, with 
both hands to his streaming face, retreated to the quarter- 
deck. 

A few moments more, and Jermin, forced to a compro- 
mise, followed after, in his torn frock and scarred face, 
looking for all the world as if he had just disentangled him- 
self from some intricate piece of machinery. For about 
half an hour both remained in the cabin, where the mate's 
rough tones were heard high above the low, smooth voice 
of the captain. 

Of all his conflicts with the men, this was the first in 
which Jermin had been worsted ; and he was proportion- 
ably enraged. Upon going below — as the steward after- 
ward told us — he bluntly informed Guy, that, for the 
future, he might look out for his ship himself ; for his part, 
he was done with her, if that was the way he allowed his 
officers to be treated. After many high words, the captain 
finally assured him that the first fitting opportunity the 
carpenter should be cordially flogged ; though, as matters 
stood, the experiment would be a hazardous one. Upon 
this Jermin reluctantly consented to drop the matter for 
the present ; and he soon drowned all thoughts of it in a 
can of flip, which Guy had previously instructed the stew- 
ard to prepare, as a sop to allay his wrath. 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK. 

Shoe the steed with silver 

That bore him to the fray, 
When he heard the guns at dawning — 

Miles away ; 
When he heard them calling, calling — 

Mount ! nor stay ; 



HERMAN MELVILLE. 325 

Quick, or all is lost ; 
They've surprised and storm'd the post, 
They push your routed host ; — 
Gallop ! retrieve the day ! 

House the horse in ermine — 

For the foam-flake blew 
White through the red October ; 

He thunder'd into view ; 
They cheer'd him in the looming. 
Horseman and horse they knew. 
The turn of the tide began. 
The rally of bugles ran, 
He swung his hat in the van ; 
The electric hoof-spark flew. 

Wreathe the steed and lead him — 

For the charge he led 
Touch'd and turn'd the cypress 
Into amaranths for the head 
Of Philip, king of riders, 
Who raised them from the dead. 
The camp (at dawning lost) 
By eve recover'd — forced — 
Kang with laughter of the host 
At belated Early fled. 

Shroud the horse in sable — 

For the mounds they heap ! 
There is firing in the Valley, 

And yet no strife they keep ; 
It is the parting volley, 
It is the pathos deep. 

There is glory for the brave 
Who lead and nobly save, 
But no knowledge in the grave 
Where the nameless followers sleep. 



o2Q AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

SHILOH. 

[A Requiem.] 

Skimming lightly, wheeling still, 

The swallows fly low 
O'er the field in clouded days, 

The forest-field of Shiloh — 
Over the field where April rain 
Solaced the parch'd ones stretch'd in pain, 
Through the pauses of night — 
That follow'd the Sunday fight 

Around the church of Shiloh, — 

The church so lone, the log-built one, 
That echo'd to many a parting groan 

And natural prayer 

Of dying f oemen mingled there — 
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve — 

Fame or country least their care : 
(What like a bullet can undeceive !) 

But now they lie low, 
While over them the swallows skim. 

And all is hush'd at Shiloh. 



WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. 327 



SEilliam aEetmore Storg* 

[b. Salem, Massachusetts, February 12, 1819.] 
THE SAD COUNTRY. 

There is a sad, sad country, 

Where often I go to see 
A little child, that, for all my love, 

Will never come back to me. 

There smiles he serenely on me. 

With a look that makes me cry ; 
And he prattling runs beside me, 

Till I wish that I could die. 

That country is dim and dreary, 

Yet I cannot keep away. 
Though the shadows there are heavy and dark, 

And the sunlight sadder than they. 

And there, in a ruined garden, 
Which once was gay with flowers, 

I sit by a broken fountain, 
And weep and pray for hours. 



THE ROSE. 

When Nature had shaped her rustic beauties. 
The bright-eyed daisy, the violet sweet. 

The blushing poppy that nods and trembles 
In its scarlet hood among the wheat, — 



328 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

She paused and pondered ; — and then she fashioned 
The scentless camelia, proud and cokl, 

The spicy carnation freaked with passion, 
The lily pale, for an angel to hold. 

All were fair ; yet something was wanting, 
Of freer perfection, of larger repose ; 

And again she paused, — then, in one glad moment, 
She breathed her whole soul into the rose. 

With you, dear Violet, Daisy, and Poppy, 
Pleasant it was in the fields to play. 

In careless and heartless joy of childhood. 
When an hour was as long as manhood's day. 

And with you, passionate, bright Carnation, 
A boy's brief love for a time I knew ; 

And you I admired, proud Lady Camelia; 
And, Lily, I sang in the church with you. 

But my Rose, my frank, free-hearted, 

My perfect above all conscious arts. 
What were they beside thee, Rose, my darling ! 

To you I have given my heart of hearts. 



THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. 329 



EJomas SEilliam f arsons* 

[b. Boston, MaBsacliuselts, August 18, 1819.] 
LOUISA'S GRAVE. 

Deep in the city's noisy heart, 

A sacred spot there lies ; 
Amid the tumult, yet apart, 

And shut from worldly eyes. 

There, just beyond the chapel shade, 

Hid in a clovered mound, 
Enough of innocence is laid 

To sanctify the ground. 

Born as the violets are, in May, 
With song of birds she came. 

And when she sighed her soul away, 
The season was the same. 

It seemed in heaven benignly meant 

To give this virgin birth 
When all things beautiful are sent 

To bless the budding earth. 

But, if her birth befitted then 
The spring-time and the bloom, 

Why, when that gladness came again. 
Why went she to the tomb ? 

Oh, let not impious grief accuse 
Kind Nature of a wrong ! 



330 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Her form, in flowers and fragrant dews, 
Shall be exhaled ere long. 

Her beauty was akin to them ; 

Their elements combined 
To shape the young, consummate stem, 

Whose blossom was her mind. 

And now the blossom is with God ; 

Soon shall the sun and showers 
Wake from the slumber of the sod - 

All that was ever ovirs. 

No weary winter's frozen sleep. 

Under the torpid snows, 
Her undecaying frame can keep 

In the clay's cold repose ; 

For all her mortal part shall melt, 

In other forms to rise, 
Before her spirit shall have dwelt 

One summer in the skies. 



WALT WHITMAN. 331 



SEalt Smtjitmait. 

[b. West Hills, Long Island, New York, May 31, 1819.] 

GREATNESS IN POETRY. 

The art of art, the glory of expression and tlie sunshine 
of the light of letters, is simplicity. Nothin§[ is better than 
simplicity — nothing can make up for excess, or p „ 
for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the " Leaves of 
heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths Grass," 
and give all subjects their articulations, are jDOwers ^^^^' 
neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in 
literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the 
movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of the 
sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside, 
is the flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him 
who has achieved it, you have looked on one of the masters 
of the artists of all nations and times. You shall not con- 
template the flight of the gray gull over the bay, or the 
mettlesome action of the blood horse, or the tall leaning of 
sun-flowers on their stalk, or the appearance of the sun 
journeying through heaven, or the appearance of the moon 
afterward, with any more satisfaction than you contemplate 
him. i. The great poet has less a marked style and is more 
the channel of thoughts and things without increase or 
diminution, and is the free channel of himself. He swears 
to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my 
writing any elegance, or effect, or originality, to hang in 
the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have 
nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What 
I tell, I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt 
or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purposes as 
health or heat or snow has, and be as regardless of observa- 



332 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tion. What I experience or portray shall go from my com- 
position without a shred of my composition. You shall 
stand by my side and look in the mirror with me. 

The old red blood and stainless gentility of great poets 
will be proved by their unconstraint. A heroic person 
walks at his ease through and out of that custom or prece- 
dent or authority that suits him not. Of the traits of the 
brotherhood of first-class writers, savans, musicians, invent- 
ors and artists, nothing is finer than silent defiance advanc- 
ing from new free forms. In the need of poems, philosophy, 
politics, mechanism, science, behavior, the craft of art, an 
appropriate native grand opera, ship-craft, or any craft, he 
is greatest for ever and ever who contributes the greatest 
original practical example. The cleanest expression is that 
which finds no sphere worthy of itself, and makes one. 

The messages of great poems to each man and woman 
are. Come to us on equal terms, only then can you under- 
stand us. We are no better than you, what we inclose you 
inclose, what we enjoy you may enjoy. Did you suppose 
there could be only one Supreme ? We affirm there can be 
unnumbered Suj)remes, and that one does not countervail 
another any more than one eye-sight countervails another — 
and that men can be good or grand only of the conscious- 
ness of their supremacy within them. What do you think 
is the grandeur of storms and dismemberments, and the 
deadliest battles and wrecks, and the wildest fury of the 
elements, and the power of the sea, and the motion of 
nature, and the throes of human desires, and dignity and 
hate and love? It is that something in the soul which 
says, Rage on, whirl on, I tread master here and every- 
where — master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter 
of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of 
all terror and all pain. 



WALT WHITMAN. 333 



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 

The ship has weather'd every rock, the prize we sought is 

won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting. 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
daring ; 

But heart ! heart ! heart ! 
the bleeding drops of red. 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle 

trills. 
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding. 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning ; 

Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck. 
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and 

done ; 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. 
Exult, shores ! and ring, bells ! 
But I, with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



334 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



THE SINGER IN THE PRISON. 



sight of pity, shame and dole ! 
fearful thought — a convict soid. 

Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison, 

Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, 

Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive sweet and 

strong the like whereof was never heard. 
Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who 

ceas'd their pacing. 
Making the hearer's pulses stop for ecstasy and awe. 



The sun was low in the west one winter day. 

When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of 

the land, 
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily 

counterfeiters, 
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers 

round. 
Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes). 
Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by 

either hand. 
Whom seating on the stools beside her on the platform. 
She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical 

prelude. 
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn. 

A soul confined by bars and bands, 
Cries, help ! help ! and wrings her hands, 
Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast. 
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest. 



WALT WHITMAN. 335 

Ceaseless she paces too and fro, 
heart-sick days ! nights of woe ! 
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face, 
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace. 

" It was not I that sinn'd the sin, 
The ruthless body dragg'd me in ; 
Though long I strove covirageously, 
The body was too much for me." 

Dear prison'd soul bear up a space. 
For soon or late the certain grace ; 
To set thee free and bear thee home, 
The heavenly pardoner death shall come. 

Convict no more, nor shame^ nor dole! 
Depart — a God-enfranchised soul! 

3. 

The singer ceas'd, 

One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those 

upturned faces, 
Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, 

brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces. 
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between 

them. 
While her gown touch'd them rustling in the silence, 
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk. 

While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr'd 

(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol), 

A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute. 

With deep half-stifled sobs and sounds of bad men bow'd 

and moved to weeping, 
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home, 



336 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy 

childhood. 
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence ; 
A wondrous minute then — but after in the solitary night, 

to many, many there. 
Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the 

tune, the voice, the words. 
Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle, 
The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings, 

sight of 2)ity, shame and dole ! 
fearful thought — a convict soul. 



FOR YOU, O DEMOCRACY! 

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, 
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, 
I will make divine, magnetic lands. 
With the love of comrades. 
With the life-long love of comrades. 

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers 
of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, 
and all over the prairies ; 
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each 
other's necks ; 

By the love of comrades. 

By the manly love of comrades. 



JULIA WARD HOWE. 337 



Sulta SHarti l^otoe, 

[b. New York, New York, May 27, 1819.] 

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 

are stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift 
sword ; 
His truth is marching on. 

Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 

camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps ; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 
lamps ; 
His day is marching on. 

Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel : 
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall 

deal : 
Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his 
heel ! 
Since God is marching on. 

Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! 

He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 
retreat ; 



338 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

He is sifting out tlie hearts of men before His judgment 

seat: 
Oh, be swift, my soul ! to answer Him ; be jubilant, my feet! 
Our God is marching on. 

Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free ! 
While God is marching on. 
Glory! glory! hallelujah! 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



James Eussrll iLobiell 

[b. Cambridge, Massachuselts, February 22, 
DRYDEN. 



Was he, then, a great poet ? Hardly, in the narrowest 
definition. But he was a strong thinker, wlio sometimes 
carried common sense to a height where it catches 

the light of a diviner air, and warmed reason till ™°°S ™y 

. Books, 

it had well-nigh the illuminating property of intu- 
ition. Certainly he is not, like Spenser, the poet's poet; 
but other men have also their rights. Even the Philistine 
is a man and a brother, and is entirely right as far as he 
sees. To demand more of him is to be unreasonable. And 
he sees, among other things, that a man who undertakes to 
write should first have a meaning perfectly defined to him- 
self, and then should be able to set it forth clearly in the 
best words. This is precisely Dryden's praise ; and, amid 
the rickety sentiment looming big through misty phrase 
which marks so much of modern literature, to read him is 
as bracing as a northwest wind. He blows the mind clear. 
In ripeness of mind and bluff heartiness of expression, he 
takes rank with the best. His phrase is always a short cut 
to his sense ; for his estate was too spacious for him to 
need that trick of winding the path of his thought about, 
and planting it out with clumps of epithet, by which the 
landscape-gardeners of literature give to a paltry half-acre 
the air of a park. In poetry, to be next best is, in one 
sense, to be nothing ; and yet, to be among the first in any 
kind of writing, as Dry den certainly was, is to be one of a 
very small company. 

He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. And if 
he does not, like one or two of the greater masters of song, 



340 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

stir our sympathies by that indefinable aroma so magical in 
arousing the subtile associations of the soul, he has this 
in common with the few great writers, — that the winged 
seeds of his thought embed themselves in the memory, and 
germinate there. If I could be guilty of the absurdity of 
recommending to a young man any author on whom to form 
his style, I should tell him that, next to having something 
that will not stay unsaid, he could find no safer guide than 
Dryden. 



BOOKS AND READING. 

Every book we read may be made a round in the ever- 
lengthening ladder by which we climb to knowledge and to 
that temperance and serenity of mind which, as it 
Democracy ^g ^j^g ripest fruit of Wisdom, is also the sweetest. 

Addresses, -^^^^ *^^^ ^^^ ^^^^y ^® ^^ ^® ^®^^ ^^^^ books aS 
make us think, and read them in such a way as 
helps them to do so ; that is, by endeavoring to judge them, 
and thus to make them an exercise rather than a relaxation 
of the mind. Desultory reading, except as a conscious pas- 
time, hebetates the brain, and slackens the bow-string of 
Will. It communicates as little intelligence as the messages 
that run along the telegraph-wire to the birds that perch on 
it. Few men learn the highest use of books. After life- 
long study, many a man discovers too late that, to have had 
the philosopher's stone availed nothing without the philoso- 
pher to use it. Many a scholarly life, stretched like a 
talking vine to bring the wisdom of antiquity into com- 
munion with the present, can at last yield us no better news 
than the true accent of a Greek verse, or the translation of 
some filthy nothing scrawled on the walls of a brothel by 
some Pompeian idler. And it is certainly true that the 
material of thought reacts upon the thought itself. Shake- 
speare himself would have been commonplace had he been 
paddocked in a thinly-shaven vocabulary ; and Phidias, had 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 341 

he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A 
man is known, says the proverb, by tlie company he keeps ; 
and not only so, but made by it. 

Milton makes his fallen angels grow small to enter the 
infernal council room; but the soul, which God meant to 
be the spacious chamber where high thoughts and generous 
aspirations might commune together, shrinks and narrows 
itself to the measure of the meaner company that is wont 
to gather there, hatching conspiracies against our better 
selves. We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of the 
men of three centuries ago, and at a certain dignity of 
phrase that characterizes them. They were scholars because 
they did not read so many things as we. They had fewer 
books, but these were of the best. Their speech was noble, 
because they lunched with Plutarch and supped with Plato. 



SNOW. 

- The preludings of Winter are as beautiful as those of 
Spring. 

In a gray December day, when, as the farmers say, it is 
too cold to snow, his numbed fingers will let fall 
doubtfully a few star-shaped flakes, the snow- T , ° ^ 
drops and anemones that harbinger his more as- 
sured reign. Now, and now only, may be seen, heaped on 
the horizon's eastern edge, those " blue clouds " from forth 
which Shakespeare says that Mars " doth pluck the masoned 
turrets." Sometimes, also, when the sun is low, you will 
see a single cloud trailing a flurry of snow along the southern 
hills in a wavering fringe of purple. And when at last the 
real snowstorm comes, it leaves the earth with a virginal 
look on it that no other of the seasons can rival, — com- 
pared with which, indeed, they seem soiled and vulgar. 

And what is there in nature so beautiful as the next 
morning after such confusion of the elements ? Night has 



342 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

no silence like this of busy day. All the batteries of noise 
are spiked. We see the movement of life as a deaf man 
sees it, a mere wraith of the clamorous existence that inflicts 
itself on our ears when the ground is bare. 

The earth is clothed in innocence as a garment. Every 
wound of the landscape is healed ; whatever was stiff has 
been sweetly rounded as the breasts of Aphrodite; what 
was unsightly has been covered gently with a soft splendor, 
as if, Cowley would have said, Nature had cleverly let fall 
her handkerchief to hide it. If the Virgin (Notre Dame de 
la Neige) were to come back, here is an earth that would not 
bruise her foot, nor stain it. It is 

" The fanned snow 
That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er," — 
SoflBata e stretta dai venti Schiavi, 
Winnowed and packed by the Sclavonian winds, — 

packed so hard, sometimes, on hill-slopes, that it will bear 
your weight. What grace is in all the curves, as if every 
one of them had been swept by that inspired thumb of 
Phidias's journeyman ! 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow ; 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 343 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's down, 
And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 

The noiseless work of the sky, 
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds. 

Like brown leaves whirling by, 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn, 

Where a little headstone stood ; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 

As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ? " 

And I told her of the good All-father, 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snow-fall. 

And thought of the leaden sky 
That arched o'er our first great sorrow. 

When the mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow. 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 

" The snow that husheth all. 
Darling, the merciful Father 

Alone can make it fall." 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her, 
And she, kissing back, could not know 

That my kiss was given to her sister, 
Folded close under deepening snow. 



344 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

SPRING COMES. 

[From "The Biglow Papers."] 

I, country -born an' bred, know where to find 
Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, 
An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes, — 
Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, 
Blood-roots, whos& rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, 
Each on 'em's cradle to a baby pearl, — 
But these are jes' Spring's pickets ; sure ez sin, 
The rebble frosts '11 try to drive 'em in ; 
For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, 
'Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint ; 
Though I own up I like our back'ard springs 
Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things. 
An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words 
Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds : 
Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, 
But when it cloos git stirred, there's no gin-out ! 

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees. 

An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — 

Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned 

Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. 

'Fore long the trees begin to show belief, — 

The maple crimsons to a coral-reef. 

Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers, 

So plump they look like yaller caterpillars. 

Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold 

Softer'n a baby's be at three days old : 

Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick ; he knows 

Thet arter this there's only blossom snows ; 

So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse. 

He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. 

Then seems to come a hitch, — things lag behind, 
Till some fine morniu' Spring makes up her mind, 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 345 

An' ez, wlien snow-swelled rivers crash their dams 

Heaped up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, 

A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, 

Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 

Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, 

Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, 

Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' i:i tune 

An' gives one leap from April into June : 

Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you think. 

Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink ; 

The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud ; 

The orchai'ds turn to heaps o' rosy cloud ; 

Eed-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it. 

An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; 

The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade 

An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade ; 

In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings, 

An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings ; 

All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers 

The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, 

Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try 

With pins, — they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby ! 

But I don't love your cat'logue style, — do you ? — 

Ez ef to sell off ISTatur' by vendoo ; 

One word with blood in't 's twice ez good ez two : 

'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year. 

Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; 

Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings. 

Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, 

Or, givin' way to't in a mock despair, 

Kuns down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. 



346 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



TO THE DANDELION. 



Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gohl. 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, fidl of pride uphold. 

High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 
In the white lily's breezy tent. 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yelloAv circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass. 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass. 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 

Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 347 

Or wliiten in the wind, of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 

Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 

Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 

And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to. deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 



FROM " APPLEDORE." 

'Tis the sight of a lifetime to behold 

The great shorn sun as yovi see it now, 

Across eight miles of undulant gold 

That widens landward, weltered and rolled. 

With freaks of shadow and crimson stains ; 

To see the solid mountain brow 

As it notches the disk, and gains and gains 



348 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Until there comes, you scarce know when, 

A tremble of fire o'er tlie parted lips 

Of clond and mountain, which vanishes ; then 

From the body of day the sun-soul slips 

And the face of earth darkens ; but now the strips 

Of western vapor, straight and thin, 

From which the horizon's swervings win 

A grace of contrast, take fire and burn 

Like splinters of touchwood, whose edges a mould 

Of ashes o'erfeathers ; northward turn 

For an instant, and let your eye grow cold 

On Agamenticus, and when once more 

You look 'tis as if the land-breeze, growing 

From the smouldering brands the film were blowing, 

And brightening them down to the very core ; 

Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden. 

The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden, 

Hardening into one black bar 

O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar, 

Shoots a splinter of light like diamond, 

Half seen, half fancied ; by and by 

Beyond whatever is most beyond 

In the uttermost waste of desert sky, 

Grows a star ; 

And over it, visible spirit of dew, — 

Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your breath. 

Or surely the miracle vanisheth, — 

The new moon, tranced in unspeakable blue ! 

No frail illusion ; this were true. 

Rather, to call it the canoe 

Hollowed out of a single pearl. 

That floats us from the Present's whirl 

Back to those beings which were ours, 

When wishes were winged things like powers ! 

Call it not light, that mystery tender. 

Which broods upon the brooding ocean, 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 349 

That flush of ecstasied siu-render 

To indefinable emotion, 

That glory, mellower than a mist 

Of pearl dissolved with amethyst. 

Which rims Square Rock, like what they paint 

Of mitigated heavenly sj^lendor 

Eound the stern forehead of a Saint ! 

No more a vision, reddened, largened. 

The moon dips toward her mountain nest. 

And, fringing it with palest argent. 

Slow sheathes herself behind the margent 

Of that long cloud-bar in the West, 

Whose nether edge, erelong, you see 

The silvery chrism in turn anoint. 

And then the tiniest rosy point 

Touched doubtfully and timidly 

Into the dark blue's chilly strip, 

As some mute, wondering thing below, 

Awakened by the thrilling glow, 

Might, looking up, see Dian dip 

One lucent foot's delaying tip 

In Latmian fountains long ago. 



FROM "THE PRESENT CRISIS." 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil 

side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the 

bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the 

right. 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and 

that light. 



350 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Hast thou chosen, my people, on whose party thou shalt 

stand. 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against 

our land ? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is 

strong, 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all 

wrong. 

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see. 
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Obliv- 
ion's sea ; 
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry 
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet 

earth's chaff must fly ; 
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath 
passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but 

record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and 

the Word ; 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 

unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his 

own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great. 
Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of 

fate, 
But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din. 
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 

within, — 
" They enslave their children's children who make compro- 
mise with sin." 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 351 

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched 

crust, 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to 

be just; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands 

aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that 

stood alone, 
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious 

stone, 
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 

incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, 
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme 

design. 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I 

track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not 

back, 
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation 

learned 
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts 

hath burned 
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to 

heaven upturned. 

For Humanity sweeps onward : where to-day the martyr 

stands. 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots 

burn. 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 



352 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



^EtJbarti Ebcrctt ^alc. 

[b. Boston, Massachusetts, April 3, 1822.] 
A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM. 

I FIRST came to understand anything abont "the Juan 
without a country" one day when we overhauled a dirty 
little schooner which had slaves on board. An 
The Man officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a 
Country. ^^^^ minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that 
some one might be sent him who could speak Por- 
tuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the message 
came, and we all wished we could interpret when the cap- 
tain asked who spoke Portuguese, But none of the officers 
did ; and jiist as the captain was sending forward to ask if 
any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said he 
should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he 
understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted 
out another boat Avith him, and in this boat it was my luck 
to go. 

When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom 
see, and never want to. Nastiness beyond account, and 
chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness. There were 
not a great many of the negroes; but by way of making 
what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan 
had had their hand-cuffs and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, 
for convenience' sake, was putting them upon the rascals of 
the schooner's crew. The negroes were, most of them, out 
of the hold, and swarming all round the dirty deck, with 
a central throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him 
in every dialect and patois of a dialect, from the Zulu click 
up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed. 

As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogs- 
head, on which he had mounted in desperation, and said, — 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 353 

"For God's love, is there anybody who can make these 
wretches understand something ? The men gave them rum, 
and that did not quiet them. I knocked that big fellow 
down twice, and that did not soothe him. And then I talked 
Choctaw to all of them together ; and I'll be hanged if they 
understood that as well as they understood the English." 

Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two 
line-looking Kroomen were dragged out who, as it had been 
found already, had worked for the Portuguese on the coast 
at Fernando Po. 

" Tell them they are free," said Vaughan ; '' and tell them 
that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get 
rope enough." 

Nolan "put that into Spanish"; that is, he explained it 
in such Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and 
they in turn to such of the negroes as could understand 
them. Then there was such a yell of delight, clinching 
of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan's feet, and a 
general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous 
worship of Vaughan, as the deus ex madiina of the occasion. 

"Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, "that I will 
take them all to Cape Palmas." 

This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was prac- 
tically as far from the homes of most of them as New 
Orleans or Rio Janeiro was ; that is, they would be eternally 
separated from home there. And their interpreters, as we 
could understand, instantly said, "Ah, non Palmas," and 
began to propose infinite other expedients in most voluble 
language. Vaughan was rather disappointed at this result 
of his liberality, and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. 
The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he 
hushed the men down, and said, "He says 'Not Palmas.' 
He says, '■ Take us home, take us to our own country, take 
us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and 
our own women.' He says he has an old father and mother 
who will die if they do not see him. And this one says he 
left his people all sick, and paddled down to Fernando to 



354 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

beg tlie white doctor to come and lielp them, and that these 
devils caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and that 
he has never seen anybody from home since then. And 
this one says," choked out Nolan, ** that he has not heard a 
word from his home in six months, while he has been locked 
lip in an infernal barracoon." 

Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while Nolan 
struggled through this interpretation. I, who did not under- 
stand anything of the passion involved in it, saw that the 
very elements were melting with fervent heat, and that 
something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes them- 
selves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and 
Vaughan's almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as 
he could get words, he said : 

" Tell them yes, yes, yes ; tell them they shall go to the 
Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner 
through the Great White Desert, they shall go home ! " 

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they 
all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub his nose 
with theirs. 

But he could not stand it long ; and getting Vaughan to 
say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our boat. 
As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, 
he said to me, '^ Youngster, let that show you what it is to 
be without a family, without a home, and without a country. 
And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing 
that shall put a bar between you and your family, your 
home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to take you 
that instant home to his own heaven. Stick by your fam- 
ily, boy ; forget you have a self, while you do everything 
for them. Think of your home, boy ; write and send, and 
talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, 
the farther you have to travel from it ; and rush back to it, 
when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. 
And for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his 
throat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to the ship, 
" never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 355 

though the service cany you through a thousand hells. 
No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters 
you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let 
a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Eemem- 
ber, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, 
behind officers, and government, and people even, there is 
the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong 
to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, 
boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils 
there had got hold of her to-day ! " 



356 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Eidjarti IHalrolm Jo|)nston* 

[b. Hancock County, Georgia, March 8, 1822.] 
NIPPED IN THE BUD. 

Mr. Thomas Watts had already conceived a passion 
that was ardent, and pointed, and ambitious to a degree 
Dukes- which Susan characterized as "perfectly redick- 

borough erlous." 

Tales. j3^^^ y^Yio was the young lady who had thus con- 

centrated upon herself all the first fresh worship of that 
young but manly heart ? Was it Miss Jones, or Miss 
Sharp? Was it Miss Holland or Miss Hutchins ? Not 
one of these. Mr. Thomas Watts had with one tremendous 
bound leaped clear over the heads of these secondary char- 
acters, and cast himself at the very foot of the throne. 
To be plain, Mr. Watts fondly, entirely, madly, loved jVHss 
Julia Louisa Wilkins, the mistress and head of the Dukes- 
borough Female Institution. 

Probably this surprising reach might be attributed to the 
ambitious nature of his father, from whom he liad inherited 
this and some other qualities. Doubtless, however, the 
recollection of having been kept long in frocks had engen- 
dered a desire to convince the world that they had sadly 
mistaken their man. Whatever was the motive power, such 
was the fact. Now, notwithstanding this state of his own 
feelings, he had never made a declaration in so many words 
to Miss Wilkins. But he did not doubt for a moment that 
she thoroughly understood his looks, and sighs, and devoted 
services. For the habit which all of us have of enveloping 
beloved objects in our hearts, and making them, so to speak, 
understand and reciprocate our feelings, had come to Mr. 
Watts even to a greater degree, perhaps, than if he had been 



RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 357 

older. He was as little inclined and as little able to dovibt 
Miss Wilkins as to doubt himself. Facts seemed to bear 
liim out. She had not only smiled upon him time and time 
again, and patted him sweetly on the back of his head, and 
praised his roach to the very skies ; but once, when he had 
carried her a great armful of good, fat pine-knots, she was 
so overcome as to place her hand under his chin, look him 
fully in the face, and declare if he wasn't a man, there 
wasn't one in this wide, wide Avorld. 

Such was the course of his true love Avhen its smoothness 
suffered that interruption which so strangely obtrudes itself 
among the fondest affairs of the heart. Miss Susan had 
threatened so often without fulfilment to give information 
to their mother, that he had begun to presume there was 
little or no danger from that quarter. Besides, Mr. Watts 
had now grown so old and manlike that he was getting to 
be without apprehension from any quarter. He reflected 
that within a few weeks more he would be fourteen years 
old, when legal rights would accrue. Determining not to 
choose any '' gardzeen," it would follow that he must become 
his own. Yet he did not intend to act with unnecessary 
notoriety. Plis plans were, to consummate his union on the 
very day he should be fourteen ; but to do so clandestinely, 
and then run away, not stopping until he should get with 
his bride plump into Vermont. For even the bravest find 
it necessary sometimes to retreat. 

Of the practicability of this plan he had no doubt, because 
he knew that Miss Wilkins had five hundred dollars in hard 
cash — a whole stocking full. This sum seemed to him 
immensely adequate for their support in becoming style for 
an indefinitely long period of time. 

As the day of his majority approached, he grew more and 
more reserved in his intercourse with his family. This was 
scarcely to be avoided now, when he was already beginning 
to consider himself as not one of them. If his conscience 
ever upbraided him as he looked upon his toiling mother and 
his helpless brothers and sisters, and knew that he alone 



358 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Avas to rise into luxury, while they were to be left in their 
lowly estate, he reflected that it was a selfish world at best, 
and that every man must take care of himself. But one day, 
after a season of unusual reserve, and when he had behaved 
to Miss Susan in a way which she considered outrageously 
supercilious, the latter availed herself of his going into the 
village, fulfilled her threat, and gave her mother full in- 
formation of the state of his feelings. That resolute woman 
was in the act of ironing a new homespun frock she had 
just made for Susan. 

She laid down her iron, sat down in a chair, and looked 
up at Susan. 

" Susan, don't be foolin' 'long o' me." 

" Ma, I tell you it's the truth." 

'' Susan, do you want n^e to believe that Tom's a fool ■' 
I know'd the child didn't have no great deal of sense ; but I 
didn't think he was a clean-gone fool." . . . 

''Yes, we lives and larns. But, bless me, it won't do to 
tarry here. Susan, have that frock ironed all right, stiff 
and starch, by the time I git back. I shan't be gone long." 

The lady arose, and, without putting on her bonnet, 
walked rapidly down the streets. 

" What are you looking for, Mrs. Watts ? " inquired an 
acquaintance whom she met on her way. 

" I'm a-looking for a person of the name of Mr. Watts," 
she answered, and rushed madly on. The acquaintance 
hurried home; but told other acquaintances, on the way, 
that the Widow Watts have lost her mind, and gone ravin' 
distracted. Soon afterwards, as Mr. Watts was slowly re- 
turning, his mind full of great thoughts, and his head some- 
what bowed, he suddenly became conscious that his hat 
was removed, and his roach rudely seized. Immediately 
afterwards he found himself carried along the street, his 
head foremost, and his legs and feet performing the smallest 
possible part in the act of locomotion. The villagers looked 
on with wonder. The conclusion was universal. Yes, the 
Widow Watts have lost her mind. 



RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 359 

AVhen she had reached her cabin Avith her charge, a space 
was cleared in the middle, by removing the stools and the 
children. Then Mr. Watts was ordered to remove such 
portions of his attire as might oppose any hindrance what- 
ever to the application of a leather strap to those parts of 
his person which his mother might select. 

" Oh, mother, mother ! " began Mr. Watts. 

" No motherin' o' me, sir. Down with 'em." And down 
they came ; and down came the strap, rapidly, violently. 

" Oh, mammy, mammy ! " 

" Ah, now ! that sounds a little like old times, when you 
used to be a boy," she exclaimed in glee, as the sounds were 
repeated amid the unslackened descent of the strap. Mrs. 
Watts seemed disposed to carry on a lively conversation 
during this flagellation. She joked her son pleasantly about 
Miss Wilkins, inquired when it was to be and who was to 
be invited ? Oh, no ! she forgot it was not to be a big 
wedding, but a private one. But how long were they going 
to be gone before they would make a visit ? But Mr. Watts 
not only could not see the joke, but was not able to join in 
the conversation at all, except to continue to scream louder 
and louder, " Oh, mammy, mammy ! " Mrs. Watts, finding 
him not disposed to be talkative, except in mere ejaculatory 
remarks, appealed to little Jack, and Mary Jane, and Polly 
Ann, and to all, down even to the baby. She asked them. 
Did they know that Buddy Tommy Avere a man grown, and 
were going to git married and have a wife, and then go 
away off yonder to the Vermontes ? Little Jack, and Polly 
Ann, and baby, and all, evidently did not precisely under- 
stand ; for they all cried and laughed tumultuously. 

How long this exercise, varied as it was by most animated 
conversation, might have continued if the mother had not 
become exhausted, there is no calculating. Things were 
fast approaching that condition when the son declared that 
his mother would kill him if she didn't stop. 

"That," she answered between breaths, "is — what — I 



360 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

— aims — to do — if — I can't git it — all — all — every — 
spang — passel — outen you." 

Tom declared that it was all gone. 

" Is you — a man — or — is you — a boy ? " 

" Boy ! boy ! mammy ! " cried Tom. " Let me up, mam- 
my — and — I'll be a boy — as long — as I live." 

She let him up. 

" Susan, whar's that frock ? Ah, there it is. Lookee 
here. Here's your clo'es, my man. Mary Jane, put away 
them pantaloonses." 

Tom was making ready to resume the frock. But Susan 
remonstrated. It wouldn't look right, now ; and she would 
go Tom's security that he wouldn't be a man any more. 

He was cured. From being an ardent lover, he grew to 
become a hearty hater of the principal of the Dukesborough 
Female Institution, the more implacable upon his hearing 
that she had laughed immoderately at his whipping. Be- 
fore many months she removed from the village ; and when, 
two years afterwards, a rumor (whether true or not we 
never knew) came that she was dead, Tom was accused of 
being gratified by the news. Nor did he deny it. 

" Well, fellers," said he, " I know it weren't right ; but I 
couldn't keep from being glad, if it had a-kilt me." 



DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. 361 



©onalti 0rant illttrfjell 

[b. Norwicb, Connecticut, April 12, 1822.] 
THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 

The parson is a stout man, remarkable, in your opinion, 
chiefly, for a yellowish-brown wig, a strong nasal tone, and 
occasional violent thumps upon the little, clingy, 
red velvet cushion, studded with brass tacks, at Dream Life, 
the top of the desk. You do not altogether ad- 
mire his style ; and by the time he has entered upon his 
"Fourthly," you give your attention, in despair, to a new 
reading (it must be the twentieth) of the preface to Dr. 
Dwight's Version of the Psalms. 

The singing has a charm for you. There is a long, thin- 
faced, flax-haired man, who carries a tuning-fork in his 
waistcoat pocket, and who leads the choir. His position is 
in the very front rank of gallery benches, facing the desk ; 
and by the time the old clergyman has read two verses of 
the psalm, the country chorister turns around to his little 
group of aids — consisting of the blacksmith, a carroty 
headed school-master, two women in snuff-colored silks, and 
a girl in a pink bonnet — to announce the tune. 

This being done in an authoritative manner, he lifts his 
long music-book, — glances again at his little company, — 
clears his throat by a powerful ahem, followed by a power- 
ful use of a bandanna pocket-handkerchief, — draws out his 
tuning-fork, and waits for the parson to close his reading. 
He now reviews once more his company, — throws a reprov- 
ing glance at the young woman in the pink hat, who at the 
moment is biting off a stout bunch of fennel, — lifts his 
music-book, — thumps upon the rail with his fork, — listens 
keenly, — gives a slight ahem, — falls into the cadence, — 



862 AMERICAN 1.ITERATURE. 

swells into a strong crescendo, — catches at tlie first word 
of the line, as if he were afraid it might get away, — turns 
to his company, — lifts his music-book with spirit, — gives 
it a powerful slap with the disengaged hand, and with a 
majestic toss of the head, soars away, with half the women 
below straggling on in his wake, into some such brave, old 
melody as — Litchfield ! . . . 

The farmers you have a high respect for — particularly 
for one weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown surtout, who 
brings his whip into church with him, who sings in a very 
strong voice, and who drives a span of gray colts. You 
think, however, that he has got rather a stout wife ; and 
from the way he humors her in stopping to talk with two 
or three other fat women, before setting off for home (though 
he seems a little fidgety), you naively think that he has a 
high regard for her opinion. Another townsman, who at- 
tracts your notice, is a stout old deacon, who, before enter- 
ing, always steps around the corner of the church, and puts 
his hat upon the ground, to adjust his wig in a quiet way. 
He then marches up the broad aisle in a stately manner, 
and plants his hat, and a big pair of buckskin mittens, on 
the little table under the desk. When he is fairly seated 
in his corner of the pew, with his elbow upon the top-rail, 
— almost the only man who can comfortably reach it, — you 
observe that he spreads his brawny fingers on his scalp, in 
an exceedingly cautious manner ; and you innocently think 
again, that it is very hypocritical in a deacon, to be pre- 
tending to lean upon his hand, when he is only keeping his 
wig straight. 

After the morning service, they have an "hour's inter- 
mission," as the preacher calls it; during which, the old 
men gather on a sunny side of the building, and after shak- 
ing hands all around, and asking after the " folks " at home, 
they enjoy a quiet talk about the crops. One man, for in- 
stance, with a twist in his nose, would say, " It's raether a 
growin' season " ; and another would reply, " Tolerable ; but 
potatoes is feelin' the wet, badly." The stout deacon ap- 



DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. 363 

proves this opinion, and confirms it, by blowing his nose 
very powerfully. 

Two or three of the more worldly minded ones will per- 
haps stroll over to a neighbor's barn-yard, and take a look 
at his young stock, and tali^ of prices, and whittle a little ; 
and very likely some two of them will make a conditional 
"swop" of "three likely yer'lings" for a pair of "two-year- 
olds." 

The youngsters are fond of getting out into the grave- 
yard, and comparing jack-knives, or talking about the school- 
master, or the menagerie ; or, it may be, of some prospec- 
tive " travel " in the fall, — either to town, or perhaps to 
the " seashore." 

Afternoon service hangs heavily ; and tlie tall chorister 
is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss of his 
head, as in the morning. A boy in the next box tries to 
provoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets of ginger- 
bread through the bars of the pew; but as you are not 
accustomed to that way of making acquaintance, you decline 
all overtures. 

After the service is finished, the wagons that have been 
disposed on either side of the road, are drawn up before the 
door. The old Squire meantime is sure to have a little chat 
with the parson before he leaves ; in the course of which, 
the parson takes occasion to say, that his wife is a little 
ailing — "a slight touch," he thinks, "of the rheumatiz." 
One of the children, too, has been troubled with the " summer 
complaint " for a day or two ; but he thinks that a dose of 
catnip, under Providence, will effect a cure. 

The younger and unmarried men, with red wagons, flam- 
ing upon bright yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive 
off in the van ; and they spin frightfully near some of the 
fat, sour-faced women, who remark in a quiet, but not very 
Christian tone, that " they fear the elder's sermon hasn't 
done the young bucks much good." It is much to be feared, 
in truth, that it has not. 



364 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In ten minutes the old cliurcli is thoroughly deserted; 
the neighbor who keeps the key has locked up for another 
week, the creaking door ; and nothing of the service remains 
within, except — Dr. Dwight's version, — the long music 
books, — crumbs of gingerbread, and refuse stalks of de- 
spoiled fennel. 



THOMAS WENT WORTH HI G GINS ON. 



C()omas SEcntiuort!) |l?tggins;on. 

[b. Cambridge, MassacbusettB, December 22, 1823.] 
SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 

In our methodical New England life, we still recognize 
some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign them- 
selves to being decently happy in June. They 
accept June. They compliment its weather. April Days. 
They complain of the earlier months as cold, and 
so spend them in the city ; and they complain of the later 
months as hot, and so refrigerate themseles on some barren 
sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls ; 
most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest 
away. It is time to chant a hymn of more liberal grati- 
tude. 

There are no days in the whole round year more delicious 
than those which often come to us in the latter half of 
April. 

On these days one goes forth in the morning, and finds 
an Italian warmth brooding over all the hills ; taking visible 
shape in a glistening mist of silvered azure, with which 
mingles the smoke from many bonfires. The sun trembles 
in his own soft rays, till one understands the old English 
tradition, that he dances on Easter-Day. Swimming in a 
sea of glory, the tops of the hills look nearer than their 
bases, and their glistening water-courses seem close to the 
eye, as is their liberated murmur to the ear. All across 
this broad intervale the teams are ploughing. The grass in 
the meadow seems all to have grown green since yesterday. 
The blackbirds jangle in the oak, the robin is perched upon 
the elm, the song-sparrow on the hazel, and the bluebird on 
the apple-tree. There rises a hawk and sails slowly, the 



366 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

stateliest of airy things, a floating dream of long and lan- 
guid sumnier-liours. But as yet, though there is warmth 
enough for a sense of luxury, there is coolness enough for 
exertion. No tropics can offer such a burst of joy ; indeed, 
no zone mvich warmer than our Northern States can offer a 
genuine spring. There can be none where there is no 
winter, and the monotone of the season is broken only by 
wearisome rains. Vegetation and birds being distributed 
over the year, there is no burst of verdure nor of song. 

But with us, as the buds are swelling, the birds are arriv- 
ing ; they are building their nests almost simultaneously ; 
and in all the Southern year there is no such rapture of 
beauty and of melody as here marks every morning from 
the last of April onward. 

But days even earlier than those in April have a charm, 

— even days that seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull 
and a bequest of March-wind lingers, chasing the squirrel 
from the tree and the children from the meadows. There 
is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, 

— there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is 
so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down 
and put away ; throughout the leafy arcades the branches 
show no remnant of last year, save a few twisted leaves of 
oak and beech, a few empty seed-vessels of the tardy witch- 
hazel, and a few gnawed nutshells dropped coquettishly by 
the squirrels into the crevices of the bark. All else is bare, 
but prophetic ; buds everywhere, the whole splendor of the 
coming summer concentrated in those hard little knobs on 
every bough, and clinging here and there among them, a 
brown, papery chrysalis, from which shall yet wave the 
superb wings of the Luna moth. 

An occasional shower patters on the dry leaves, but it 
does not silence the robin on the outskirts of the wood; 
indeed, he sings louder than ever during rain, though the 
song-sparrow and the bluebird are silent. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN. 367 



JFranris ^arltman, 

[b. Boston, MaBBachusetts, September 16, 1823.] 
THE HEROES OF THE LONG SAUT. 

In the preceding April, before the designs of the Iroquois 
Avere known, a yonng officer named Daulac, commandant of 
the garrison of Montreal, asked leave of Maison- 
neuve, the governor, to lead a party of volunteers ^,®. . 
against the enemy. His plan was bold to despera- Oanada. 
tion. It was known that Iroquois warriors in 
great numbers had wintered among the forests of the 
Ottawa. Daulac proposed to waylay them on their descent 
of the river, and fight them without regard to disparity of 
force. 

The settlers of Montreal had hitherto acted solely on the 
defensive, for their numbers had been too small for aggres- 
sive war. Of late their strength had been somewhat in- 
creased, and Maisonneuve, judging that a display of enter- 
prise and boldness might act as a check on the audacity of 
the enemy, at length gave his consent. 

Adam Daulac, or Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, was a young 
man of good family, who had come to the colony three years 
before, at the age of twenty-two. He had held some mili- 
tary command in France, though in what rank does not 
appear. It was said that he had been involved in some 
aftair which made him anxious to wipe out the memory of 
the past by a noteworthy exploit ; and he had been busy 
for some time among the young men of Montreal, inviting 
them to join him in the enterprise he meditated. Sixteen 
of them caught his spirit, struck hands with him, and 
pledged their word. They bound themselves by oath to 
accept no quarter; and having gained Maisonneuve's con- 



db» AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

sent they made their wills, confessed, and received the sac- 
raments. As they knelt for the last time before the altar in 
the chapel of the Hotel Dieu, that sturdy little population 
of pious Indian-fighters gazed on them with enthusiasm, 
not unmixed with an envy which had in it nothing ignoble. 
Some of the chief men of Montreal, with the brave Charles 
Le Moyne at their head, begged them to wait till the spring 
sowing was over, that they might join them; but Daulac 
refused. He was jealous of the glory and the danger, and 
he wished to command, which he could not have done had 
Le Moyne been present. 

The spirit of the enterprise was purely mediaeval. The 
enthusiasm of honor, the enthusiasm of adventure, and the 
enthusiasm of faith, were its motive forces. Daulac was a 
knight of the early crusades among the forests and savages 
of the New World. Yet the incidents of this exotic hero- 
ism are definite and clear as a tale of yesterday. The 
names, ages, and occupations of the seventeen young men 
may still be read on the ancient register of the parish of 
Montreal ; and the notarial acts of that year, preserved in 
the records of the city, contain minute accounts of such 
property as each of them possessed. The three eldest were 
of twenty-eight, thirty, and thirty-one years resj^ectively. 
The age of -the rest varied from twenty-one to twenty- 
seven. They were of various callings, — soldiers, armorers, 
locksmiths, lime-burners, or settlers without trades. The 
greater number had come to the colony as part of the re- 
inforcement brought by Maisonneuve in 1653. 

After a solemn farewell, they embarked in several canoes 
well supplied with arms and ammunition. They were very 
indifferent canoe-men ; and it is said that they lost a week 
in vain attempts to pass the swift current of St. Anne, at 
the head of the island of Montreal. At length they were 
more successful, and entering the mouth of the Ottawa, 
crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and sloAvly advanced 
against the current. 

Meanwhile, forty warriors of that remnant of the Hu- 



FRANCIS PARKMAN. 369 

rons who, in spite of Iroquois persecutions, still lingered at 
Quebec, had set out on a war-party, led by the brave and 
wily ]Stienne Annahotaha, their most noted chief. They 
stopped by the way at Three Rivers, where they found a 
band of Christian Algonquins under a chief named Mitu- 
vemeg. Annahotaha challenged him to a trial of courage, 
and it was agreed that they should meet at Montreal, where 
they were likely to find a speedy opportunity of putting 
their mettle to the test. Thither, accordingly, they re- 
paired, the Algonquin with three followers, and the Huron 
with thirty-nine. 

It was not long before they learned the departure of 
Daulac and his companions. "For," observes the honest 
Dollier de Casson, " the principal fault of our Frenchmen 
is to talk too much." The wish seized them to share the 
adventure, and to that end the Huron chief asked the gov- 
ernor for a letter to Daulac, to serve as credentials, Maison- 
neuve hesitated. His faith in Huron valor was not great, 
and he feared the proposed alliance. Nevertheless, he at 
length yielded so far as to give Annahotaha a letter in 
which Daulac was told to accept or reject the proffered 
reinforcement as he should see fit. The Hurons and Algon- 
quins now embarked, and paddled in pursuit of the seven- 
teen Frenchmen. 

They meanwhile had passed with difficulty the swift cur- 
rent at Carillon, and about the first of May reached the 
foot of the more formidable rapid called the Long Saut, 
where a tumult of waters, foaming among ledges and 
bowlders, barred the onward way. It was needless to go 
further. The Iroquois were sure to pass the Saut, and 
could be fought here as well as elsewhere. 

Just below the rapid, where the forests sloped gently to 
the shore, among the bushes and stumps of the rough 
clearing made in constructing it, stood a palisade fort, the 
work of an Algonquin war-party in the past autumn. It 
Avas a mere enclosure of trunks of small trees planted in 
a circle, and was already ruinous. Such as it was, the 



370 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Frenclimen took possession of it. Their first care, one 
would think, should have been to repair and strengthen it ; 
but this they seem not to have done : possibly in the exalta- 
tion of their minds they scorned such precaution. They 
made their fires, and slung their kettles on the neighboring 
shore ; and here they were soon joined by the Hurons and 
Algonqviins. Daulac, it seems, made no objection to their 
company, and they all bivouacked together. Morning and 
noon and night they prayed in three different tongues ; and 
when at sunset the long reach of forests on the farther 
shore basked peacefully in the level rays, the rapids joined 
their hoarse music to the notes of their evening hymn. 

In a day or two their scouts came in with tidings that two 
Iroquois canoes were coming down the Saut. Daulac had 
time to set his men in ambush among the bushes at a point 
where he thought the strangers likely to land. He judged 
aright. The canoes, bearing five Iroquois, approached, and 
were met by a volley fired with such precipitation that one 
or more of them escaped the shot, fled into the forest, and 
told their mischance to their main body, two hundred in 
number, on the river above. A fleet of canoes suddenly 
appeared, bounding down the rapids, filled with warriors 
eager for revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to 
their fort, leaving their kettles still slung over the fires. 
The Iroquois made a hasty and desultory attack, and were 
quickly repulsed. They next opened a parley, hoping, no 
doubt, to gain some advantage by surprise. Failing in this, 
they set themselves, after their custom on such occasions, 
to building a rude fort of their own in the neighboring 
forest. 

This gave the French a breathing-time, and they used it 
for strengthening their defences. Being provided with 
tools, they planted a row of stakes within their palisade, to 
form a double fence, and filled the intervening space with 
earth and stones to the height of a man, leaving some 
twenty loopholes, at each of which three marksmen were 
stationed. Their work was still unfinished when the Iro- 



FBAXCIS PARKMAN 371 

quois were upon them again. They had broken to pieces 
the birch canoes of the French and their allies, and kindling 
the bark, rushed up to pile it blazing against the palisade ; 
but so brisk and steady a fire met them that they recoiled 
and at last gave way. They came on again, and again were 
driven back, leaving many of their number on the ground, 
among them the principal chief of the Senecas. Some of 
the French dashed out, and, covered by the fire of their 
comrades, hacked off his head, and stuck it on the palisade, 
while the Iroquois howled in a frenzy of helpless rage. 
They tried another attack, and were beaten off a third time. 

This dashed their spirits, and they sent a canoe to call to 
their aid five hundred of their warriors who were mustered 
near the mouth of the Eichelieu. These were the allies 
whom, but for this untoward check, they were on their way 
to join for a combined attack on Quebec, Three Elvers, and 
Montreal. It was maddening to see their grand project 
thwarted by a few French and Indians ensconced in a 
paltry redoubt, scarcely better than a cattle-pen ; but they 
were forced to digest the affront as best they might. 

Meanwhile, crouched behind trees and logs, they beset 
the fort, harassing its defenders day and night with a spat- 
tering fire and a constant menace of attack. Thus five days 
passed. Hunger, thirst, and want of sleep wrought fatally 
on the strength of the French and their allies, who, pent 
up together in their narrow prison, fought and prayed by 
turns. Deprived as they were of water, they could not 
swallow the crushed Indian corn, or " hominy," which was 
their only food. Some of them, under cover of a brisk fire, 
ran down to the river and filled such small vessels as they 
had ; but this pittance only tantalized their thirst. They 
dug a hole in the fort, and were rewarded at last by a little 
muddy water oozing through the clay. 

Among the assailants were a number of Hurons, adopted 
by the Iroquois, and fighting on their side. These renegades 
now shouted to their countrymen in the fort, telling them 
that a fresh army was close at hand ; that they would soon 



372 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

be attacked by seven or eight hundred warriors ; and that 
their only hope was in joining the Iroquois, who would 
receive them as friends. Annahotaha's followers, half dead 
with thirst and famine, listened to their seducers, took the 
bait, and, one, two, or three at a time, climbed the jDalisade, 
and ran over to the enemy, amid the hootings and execra- 
tions of those whom they deserted. Their chief stood firm ; 
and when he saw his nephew. La Mouche, join the other 
fugitives, he fired his pistol at. him in a rage. The four 
Algonquins, who had no mercy to hope for, stood fast, with 
the courage of despair. 

On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven 
hundred savage throats, mingled with a clattering salute of 
musketry, told the Frenchmen that the expected reinforce- 
ment had come ; and soon, in the forest and on the clearing, 
a crowd of warriors mustered for the attack. Knowing 
from the Huron deserters the weakness of their enemy, 
they had no doubt of an easy victory. They advanced 
cautiously, as was usual with the Iroquois, before their 
blood was up, screeching, leaping from side to side, and 
firing as they came on ; but the French were at their posts, 
and every loophole darted its tongue of fire. Besides mus- 
kets, they had heavy musketoons of large calibre, which, 
scattering scraps of lead and iron among the throng of 
savages, often maimed several of them at one discharge. 
The Iroquois, astonished at the persistent vigor of the 
defence, fell back discomfited. 

The fire of the French, who were themselves completely 
under cover, had told upon them with deadly effect. Three 
days more wore away in a series of futile attacks, made 
with little concert or vigor ; and during all this time Daulac 
and his men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed as 
before, sure of a martyr's reward. 

The uncertain, vacillating temper common to all Indians 
now began to declare itself. Some of the Iroquois were for 
going home. Others revolted at the thought, and declared 
that it would be an eternal disgrace to lose so many men at 



FRANCIS PARKMAN. 373 

the hands of so paltry an enemy, and yet fail to take 
revenge. It was resolved to make a general assault, and 
volunteers were called for to lead the attack. After the 
custom on such occasions, bundles of small sticks were 
thrown upon the ground, and those picked them up who 
dared, thus accepting the gage of battle, and enrolling them- 
selves in the forlorn hope. No precaution was neglected. 
Large and heavy shields four or five feet high were made by 
lashing together three split logs with the aid of cross-bars. 

Covering themselves with these mantelets, the chosen 
band advanced, followed by the motley throng of warriors. 
In spite of a brisk fire, they reached the palisade, and, 
crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with 
their hatchets to cut their way through. The rest followed 
close, and swarmed like angry hornets around the little fort, 
hacking and tearing to get in. 

Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with powder, 
and plugged up the muzzle. Lighting the fuse inserted in 
it, he tried to throw it over the barrier, to burst like a 
grenade among the crowd of savages without ; but it struck 
the ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the 
Frenchmen and exploded, killing and wounding several of 
them, and nearly blinding others. 

In the confusion that followed, the Iroquois got posses- 
sion of the loopholes, and, thrusting in their guns, fired on 
those within. In a moment more they had torn a breach 
in the palisade ; but, nerved with the energy of desperation, 
Daulac and his followers sprang to defend it. Another 
breach was made, and then another. Daulac was struck 
dead, but the survivors kept up the fight. With a sword 
or a hatchet in one hand and a knife in the other, they 
threw themselves against the throng of enemies, striking 
and stabbing with the fury of madmen ; till the Iroquois, 
despairing of taking them alive, fired volley after volley 
and shot them down. All was over, and a burst of trium- 
phant yells proclaimed the dear-bought victory. 



37l^\^ AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



0corse l^enrs 33ofter» 

[b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1823.] 

THE QUEEN'S TOUCH. 

On a Good Friday, as it once befell, 

The gentle lady, royal Isabel, 

Stepjjed from her palace with a fair array 

Of Spanish nobles. Plumes and banners gay, 

And lines of burnished halberds made a lane, 

Through which the sovereign and her glittering train 

Swept like a gorgeous cloud across the face 

Of some bright sunset. Even was her pace. 

And a deep calm dwelt in her steady eyes, 

August with queenly power, and counsel wise 

To sway a realm ; yet round her playful lip 

The child still lingered, and a smile would slip, 

Like a stray sunbeam o'er a dimpled rose. 

When the crowd shouted, or an eager close 

Of loyal people broke the martial line. 

And stayed her progress. One could scarce incline 

Whether to call her queen or child ; so bright 

And innocent a spirit lit the might 

Of awful sovereignty, as on she went 

Bearing the diadem of Charles unbent — 

Ay, smiling under it, as if the weight 

Of empery heaven lightened to the date 

Of her few years. For surely heaven may bend 

In mercy to the merciful, and lend 

Its strength to her who for the weak can feel. 

As gracious Isabel. The traitor's steel ; 

The storms that broke around her princely head. 

When they who should have shielded her, instead 



GEORGE HENRY BOKER. 375 

Of muttering plots and tempting her with guile, 

Turned from her side ; the anarchy the while 

That rent her kingdom, and made Spain's great throne 

Eock as if startled by the earthquake's groan — 

All these, and more, she dared, and could withstand. 

Because God led her by the trusting hand. 

And showed the mercy she has ever shown. 

You who look doubtfully, with sighs or sneers, 
Citing the history of her after years, 
Eemember this — and let the thought atone 
For many a weakness, many an error done 
Out of the lessons of her early days, 
When all conspired to lead her evil ways — 
Her faults were taught, her virtues are her own. 

Across the flower-strewn way she slowly walked, 
Wondering at many things ; anon she talked 
To the grave minister who moved beside 
His youthful mistress with a haughty stride 
Of strained decorum. Curiously she asked 
Of this and that ; and much the lord was tasked 
To answer all her questions, which did flow 
Like ripples on the shore, — ere one could go 
Another leaped above it. For her state 
Was new to her, and not a rustic's mate 
Among the throng more marvelled at the sight 
Nor drew from it a more sincere delight. 
Than royal Isabel. More pleased she seemed 
At the hoarse shouts, and at the love that beamed 
From the tanned faces of the common crowd. 
Than at the courtly whispers, or the proud 
Looks of fixed dignity. The beggar's rags 
Were dearer to her than the silken flags 
That coiled above her ; and his vivas drowned 
The swell of music, and the ringing sound 



376 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Of the saluting steel. And once slie turned 
Full on a lord, Avliile every feature burned 
With a new thought ; and, pointing unto one 
111 clad, indeed, yet with a face o'errun 
With honest love, said, laughing at the close, 

" Why wear you purple, and he ragged clothes ? " 
Much the Don talked about society, 
And laws, and customs, and hoAV all agree 
To make one world. Although he talked the thing 
Clear to himself, and shaped a pretty ring 
Of binding words, no answering look he caught 
From the Queen's eyes ; and when he gravely sought 
To draw a word of sympathetic cheer, 
Upon her cheek he marked a long, bright tear : 
So he passed on in silence, she in thought. 

At length the minster's arch above them bent 

And through its gloom the shining courtiers went, 

Making strange light within that dusky pile. 

And all along the borders of the aisle 

Old chiefs and heroes in white grandeur slept 

Upon the tombs. Their marble faces kept 

A settled quiet, as they upward gazed 

Upon their arms and spoils, above them raised, 

Along the rafters, each in solemn ward. 

Some with their hands upon a sculptured sword. 

Some clasped in prayer, and others, full of grace, 

Crossed on their breasts. The courtiers' noisy pace 

Broke the long silence, with a painful jar. 

Unmeet and alien. Trophies of old war — 

Pennons, blood-stained, torn flags, and banners, fell 

And rose again, o'er royal Isabel : 

As if the soul that fired her ancient strain 

Were roused, and all the chivalry of Spain 

Breathed in their hollow sepulchres beneath, 

And waved the banners with a mighty breath. 



GEORGE HENRY BOKER. 377 

St. George's cross was shaken as with dread, 
The lilied silk of France shrank, as when spread 
O'er Pavia's bloody field, a second shame 
Thrilled the Dutch standards, as if Alva's name 
Were heard among them ; the horse-tails of the Moor 
Streamed to the wind, as when they fled before 
The furious Cid ; spears glittered, swords were stirred 
Within their scabbards ; one in fancy heard 
The trumpet's murmur, and a warlike peal 
Through the closed casques — *' St. Jago for Castile ! " 
If she stepped on more proudly it was not 
That Isabel herself was proud. The spot 
Of crimson on her forehead was a gleam 
Of the old glory, a reflected beam 
Cast from the trophies, that brought back the day 
When her sire's sceptre swept the world. A ray 
Of keenest sunshine through the aisles shot down, 
And blazed amid the jewels of her crown. 
Like a saint's aureole, as the Queen drew nigh 
The holy altar. With a gentle sigh 
The organ whispered through the incense-smoke, 
Trilling above her, like a lark awoke 
Some misty morning, till she touched the stair 
Of the high altar ; when, with sudden blare, 
In one grand storm of music burst the whole 
Torrent of sound o'erhead, and roll on roll 
Crashed through the building, from its hundred throats 
Of shivering metal thundering forth the notes. 
Eadiant with sunlight, wrapt in holy sound, 
And fragrant vapors, that in spirals wound 
Up through the pillars of the choir, the Queen 
Paused, as in doubt, before a sable screen 
Upon the altar, and a courtier led. 
By a sweet look, beside her — "Sir," she said, 
" Why are those papers on the altar pall ? " 
"They hold the names, your majesty of all 



378 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 

Condemned to death by law. The one you touch 
Shall surely live. — The ancient rite is such." 
Without a pause to weigh it, the great thought 
Burst from her nature, as she s]prang and caught; 
Hither and thither, at each fatal scrawl — 
Gathered the whole — and, ere she let them fall, 
A gracious look to the rapt court she gave, 
And softly said, " See, seiiors, see, I have 
A little hand; but I can touch them all! " 



GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 379 



fficorgc SEilUam Curtis. 

[b. Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824.] 
PASTORAL WALKS. 

Charles Lamb, in a felicitous turn of words that makes 
everybody wish to do what he describes, speaks of taking 
"those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about g^^, , 
Mackery End, in Hertfordshire." Who would Magazine, 
not take one of those walks ? What quaintness July, 
in the words Mackery End ! What rural melody ^^^^' 
in the word Hertfordshire ! Lamb says that he was once 
detected by a familiar damsel reclining upon the grass, on 
Primrose Hill, reading "Pamela," and he wishes that it 
had been any other book. But if any loiterer were detected 
sitting by a stream or under a tree, in this delightful season, 
reading Lamb's very essay from which we quote, he could 
not wish the situation to be different. 

As we write, it is the season for those pretty pastoral 
walks. There is one week in May — the dogwood week, 
when the dogwood is in blossom — which is the most beauti- 
ful in the year. All the trees and shrubs are then budding 
and bursting. The cherry-trees are beginning to lose their 
blossoms, and the apple-trees, at a little distance, are rounded 
mounds of bloom. The warm puffs of air — wafts, as the 
young poets call them — are aromatic with the richness of 
the orchards ; and the gardens of the Hesperides were not 
more exquisite in color and fragrance. There among the 
dark pines is the pink cloud of the Judas-tree ; and under 
the forest-trees, before they have fairly started, the shad- 
blossom herald of the azalea, the swamp honeysuckle. The 
brilliant yellow Forsythia, which comes before the lilac 
dares, and almost takes the winds of March, leads in the 
flowery train in garden-beds and along the edges of lawns. 



380 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

But what suddenness, and what profusion ! An early 
warm day reminds you that the time of the singing of birds 
has come, and that you must begin to peer after the vines 
and the young grapes ; and you are amazed to find that you 
have been caught napping, and that while you were wonder- 
ing how much longer fires would be necessary, the myriad 
firstlings of the year were already quickening, and that 
there were crocuses and violets and the trailing arbutus 
ready for the finder. From that moment a kind of Bay of 
Fundy floral tide swells and rises and pours all around 
the busy and delighted spectator. It is not a high tide 
of Lincolnshire only, but another deluge, of verdure and 
bloom, tender and beautiful ; and hill and meadow and the 
far undulating country are all submerged in the ethereal 
splendor. 

" Pretty pastoral walks " — in the country there are then 
no other. The season was in the heart of June when Lamb, 
in later years, returned to Mackery End ; and he was so ex- 
clusively a citizen, a denizen of streets, that he apparently 
cared very little for the landscape, and probably knew little 
of trees and flowers. It was the romance of the old house, 
and a certain higher family association, which gave his 
imagination a vague contact with grandeur, causing " very 
Gentility " to pass into his consciousness, which made the 
charm of the place to him. It was yesterday, and not 
to-day. 

But the pretty pastoral walks about the Easy Chair in 
the month of May are rich with the glory of the present 
moment. Indeed, from day to day, in that teeming season, 
the eye must be on the alert to mark each step of the swift 
progress. One morning the ground is all violets ; the next, 
the lilacs are everywhere in full flower; and the simultane- 
ous efflorescence of tree and shrub and creeping plant is' 
bewildering. 

From the hill your eye looks down the brilliant fresh 
green of the springing rye in the long upland field to the 
trees below, the orchard trees and the dogwood, with the 



GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 381 

bright young grass beneath, and far beyond, the gradual 
slope of the plain, with houses and gardens and spires and 
groves, to the water ; and on the other side the same varied 
luxuriance, receding to the misty hills. In the hazy after- 
noon the landscape itself becomes a mist, in which the water 
lines shine with intense brightness — gleams of silver in a 
solitary land. The bland air breathes softly as the loiterer 
gazes ; it is perfumed beyond the air of Araby. That glit- 
tering sheet of silver is not the familiar strait; it is the 
poet's 

" Broad water of the West " ; 

it is the sluggish stream of the Arthurian legend along 
which slide the slow barges — the river of Paradise. 

" Give me health and a day," says Emerson, in his earliest 
book, "and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. 
The dawn is my Assyria ; the sunset and moonrise my Pa- 
phos, and unimaginable realms of faerie ; broad noon shall be 
my England of the senses and the understanding ; the night 
shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams." 
Let the day be a day of spring, the midmost week of May 
in this latitude, and the pretty pastoral walk in the suburbs 
will not be about Mackery End, but about the garden of 
Eden. 



382 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. 



Cjjarlcs Sotifrru ILrlauti, 

[b. Philadelphia, reunsylvania, August 15, 1S24.] 
THELEME. 

I SAT one night on a palace step, 

Wrapped up in a mantel thin, 
And I gazed with a smile on the world without, 

With a growl at my world, within, 
Till I heard the merry voices ring 

Of a lordly companie, 
And straight to myself I began to sing 

"It is there that I ought to be." 

And long I gazed through a lattice raised 

Which smiled from the old gray wall, 
And my glance went in, with the evening breeze. 

And ran o'er the revellers all ; 
And I said, " If they saw me, 'twould cool their mirth. 

Far more than this wild breeze free, 
But a merrier party was ne'er on earth. 

And among them I fain would be." 

And oh ! but they all were beautiful, 

Fairer than fairy-dreams. 
And their words were sweet as the wind harp's tone 

When it rings o'er summer streams ; 
And they pledged each other with noble mien, 

" True heart with my life to thee ! " 
" Alack ! " quoth I, " but my soad is dry, 

And among them I fain would be ! " 



CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. 383 

And the gentlemen were noble sonls, 

Good fellows both sain and sonnd, 
I had not deemed that a band like this 

Could over the world be fonnd ; 
And they spoke of brave and beautiful things, 

Of all that was dear to me ; 
And I thought, " Perhaps they would like me well, 

If among them I once might be ! " 

And lovely were the ladies too. 

Who sat in the light-bright hall. 
And one there was, oh, dream of life ! 

The loveliest 'mid them all ; 
She sat alone by an empty chair, 

The queen of the feast was she, 
And I said to myself, '' By that lady fair 

I certainly ought to be." 

And loud she spoke, " We have waited long 

For one who in fear and doubt 
Looks wistfully into our hall of song 

As he sits on the steps without ; 
I have sung to him long in silent dreams, 

I have led him o'er land and sea. 
Go welcome him as his rank beseems, 

And give him a place by me ! " 

They opened the door, yet I shrunk with shame, 

As I sat in my mantle thin, 
But they haled me out with a joyous shout, 

And merrily led me in — 
And gave me a place by my bright-haired love. 

As she wept with joy and glee. 
And I said to myself, " By the stars above, 

I am just where I ought to be ! 



384 AMERICAN- literatuhe. 

Farewell to thee, life of joy and grief! 

Farewell to ye, care, and pain ! 
Farewell, thou vulgar and selfish world ! 

For I never will know thee again, 
I live, in a land where good fellows abound, 

In Theleni6, by the sea; 
They may long for a " happier life " that will, 

I am just where I ought to be ! 



RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 385 



Eicfjartr ^lenru ^totrtiartJ. 

[b. Hingham, Massachusetts, July 2, 1825.] 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 

Not what we would, but what we must, 

Makes up the sum of living ; 
Heaven is both more and less than just 

In taking and in giving. 
Swords cleave to hands that sought the ploiigh, 
And laurels miss the soldier's brow. 

Me, whom the city holds, whose feet 

Have worn its stony highways. 
Familiar with its loneliest street — 

Its ways were never my ways — 
My cradle was beside the sea, 
And there, I hope, my grave will be. 

Old homestead ! In that old, gray town, 

Thy vane is seaward blowing. 
Thy slip of garden stretches down 

To where the tide is flowing ; 
Below they lie, their sails all furled, 
The ships that go about the world. 

Dearer that little country house. 

Inland, with pines beside it; 
Some peach-trees, with unfruitful boughs, 

A well, with weeds to hide it ; 
No flowers, or only such as rise 
Self-sown, poor things, which all despise. 



386 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dear country home ! Can I forget 
The least of thy sweet trifles ? 

The window-vines that clamber yet, 
Whose blooms the bee still rifles ? 

The roadside blackberries, growing ripe, 

And in the woods the Indian Pipe ? 

Happy the man who tills his field, 
Content with rustic labor ; 

Earth does to him her fulness yield, 
Hap what may to his neighbor. 

Well days, sound nights, can there be 

A life more rational and free ? 

Dear country life of child and man ! 

For both the best, the strongest, 
That with the earliest race began, 

And hast outlived the longest. 
Their cities perished long ago ; 
Who the first farmers were we know. 

Perhaps our Babels too will fall, 

If so, no lamentations ; 
For Mother Earth will shelter all, 

And feed the unborn nations ; 
Yes, and the swords that menace now 
Will then be beaten to the plough. 



HYMN TO THE SEA. 

I know our inland landscapes, pleasant fields. 
Where lazy cattle browse, and chew the cud ; 
The smooth declivities of quiet vales : 
The swell of uplands and the stretch of woods, 
Within whose shady j)laces Solitude 



RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 387 

Holds her perpetual court. They touch me not, 

Or only touch me in my shallowest moods, 

And leave no recollection. They are naught. 

But thou, Sea, whose majesty and might 

Are mild and beautiful in this still bay, 

But terrible in the mid-ocean deeps, 

I never see thee but my soul goes out 

To thee, and is sustained and comforted ; 

For she discovers in herself, or thee, 

A stern necessity for stronger life, 

And strength to live it : she surrenders all 

She had, and was, and is possessed of more, 

With more to come — endurance, patience, peace. 

I love thee. Ocean, and delight in thee. 
Thy color, motion, vastness, — all the eye 
Takes in from shore, and on the tossing waves ; 
Nothing escapes me, not the least of weeds 
That shrivels and blackens on the barren sand. 
I have been walking on the yellow sands. 
Watching the long, white, ragged fringe of foam 
The waves had washed up on the curves of beach, 
The endless fluctuation of the waves, 
The circuit of the sea-gulls, low, aloft. 
Dipping their wings an instant in the brine, 
And urging their swift flight to distant woods. 
And round and over all the perfect sky. 
Clear, cloudless, luminous, in the summer noon. 

Thou wert before the Continents, before 
The hollow heavens, which like another sea 
Encircles them, and thee ; but whence thou wert, 
And when thou wast created, is not known. 
Antiquity was young when thou wast old. 
There is no limit to thy strength, no end 
To thy magnificence. Thou goest forth 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

On tliy long journeys to remotest lands, 

And coniest back unwearied. Tropic isles, 

Thick-set with pillared palms, delay tliee not, 

Nor Arctic icebergs hasten thy return. 

Summer and winter are alike to thee, 

The settled, sullen sorrow of the sky 

Empty of light ; the laughter of the sun ; 

The comfortable murmur of the wind 

From peaceful countries, and the mad uproar 

That storms let loose upon thee in the night 

Which they create and quicken with sharp, white fire, 

And crash of thunders ! Thou art terrible 

In thy tempestuous moods, when the loud winds 

Precipitate their strength against the waves ; 

They rear, and grapple, and wrestle, until at last, 

Bafl&ed by their own violence, they fall back, 

And thou art calm again, no vestige left 

Of the commotion, save the long, slow roll 

In summer days on beaches far away. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Ames, Fisher, 29. 
Arnold, George, 319. 

Bancroft, George, 209. 
Barlow, Joel, 31. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 286. 
Boker, George Henry, 374. 
Brown, Charles Brockden, 38. 
Brownell, Henry Howard, 222. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 123. 

Calhoun, John Caldwell, 62. 

Cary, Alice, 216. 

Gary, Phoebe, 219. 

Channing, William EUery, 53. 

Choate, Rufus, 137. 

Clay, Henry, 59. 

Conrad, Robert Taylor, 75. 

Cooke, John Esten, 309. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 76. 

Cranch, Christopher Pearse, 300. 

Curtis, George William, 379. 

Dana, Richard Henry, 117. 
Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., 275. 
Drake, Joseph Rodman, 47. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 162. 
Everett, Edward, 103. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 1. 
Freneau, Philip, 36. 

Gayarre, Charles Etienne Arthur, 
227. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 352. 
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 102. 



Hamilton, Alexander, 27. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 141. 
Henry, Patrick, 11. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 365. 
Hildreth, Richard, 150. 
Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 174. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 249. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 337. 

Irving, Washington, 69. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 315. 
James, Henry, 225. 
Jay, John, 20. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 17. 
Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 356. 
Judd, Sylvester, 188. 

Kent, James, 45. 

King, Thomas Starr, 233. 

Leland, Charles Godfrey, 382. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 208. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 177. 
Lowell, James Russell, 339. 
Lowell, Robert Trail Spence, 302. 

Madison, James, 25. 
Marsh, George Perkins, 159. 
Marshall, John, 34. 
Melville, Herman, 321. 
Mitchell, Donald Grant, 361. 
Motley, John Lothrop, 268. 

Paine, Thomas, 13. 
Palfrey, John Gorham, 130. 
Parker, Theodore, 199. 
Parkman, Francis, 367. 



390 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Parsons, Thomas William, 329. 
Percival, James Gates, 90. 
Phillips, Wendell, 283. 
Pierpont, John, 57. 
Pike, Albert, 242. 
Pinkney, Edward Coate, 135. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 106. 
Prescott, William Hickling, 92. 

Saxe, John Godfrey, 290. 
Seward, William Henry, 156. 
Simms, William Gilmore, 191. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry, 385. 
Story, William Wetmore, 327. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 257. 
Street, Alfred Billings, 213. 

Taylor, Bayard, 277. 
Thoreau, Henry David, 203. 
Ticknor, George, 121. 



Timro'l, Henry, 307. 
Trumbull, John, 22. 

Very, Jones, 264. 

Wallace, William Ross, 266. 
Washington, George, 15. 
Wasson, David Atwood, 297. 
Webster, Daniel, 64. 
Webster, Noah, 49. 
Whipple, Edwin Percy, 292. 
Whitman, Walt, 331. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 235. 
Wilde, Richard Henry, 68. 
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 153. 
Willson, Byron Forceythe, 294. 
Winthrop, Robert Charles, 246. 
Winthrop, Theodore, 304. 
Wirt, William, 43. 
Woolman, John, 6. 



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